Add
Register a deferred decision in the debt registry. Trigger by judgment, not a marker scan, whenever a future reader would ask "why this way?": an unmade decision, stub, loosened type, bypassed check, swallowed error, a default picked "for now", or a TODO/FIXME/HACK/XXX marker. Trigger immediately whenever you defer work, or when the user invokes /debt-ops:add. Over-register freely; the developer drops with "drop A", "drop A,C", or "drop all".From its SKILL.md
npx -y skills add bcanfield/agentic-tech-debt --skill addAssembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.
3 things to look at
- skips confirmationTells the agent to proceed without asking first, 2 times: "Don't ask the developer for confirmation before writing." and 1 more.
- 8 stars8 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.
- runs commandsInstructs the agent to run 2 commands, including `python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/add/scripts/register.py` and 1 more.
SKILL.md
3.5 KB, 758 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it
/debt-ops:add — register a tech-debt entry
Call register.py via Bash. The helper writes the entry under the repo's detected registry dir (default docs/debt/), assigns a short batch letter (A, B, C…), and prints exactly one line: +1 entry: <slug> (<letter>). That stdout IS the user-facing announcement — add no commentary before or after.
The call
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/add/scripts/register.py \
--slug <slug> \
--principal <effort, e.g. 2d, 1w, unknown> \
--interest <ongoing cost, e.g. "+30min/incident", unknown> \
--hotspot <path or module, e.g. pricing/engine.ts, unknown> \
--business-capability <e.g. checkout, billing, unknown> \
--payoff-trigger <concrete trigger, or "unknown"> \
--quadrant <reckless-inadvertent|reckless-deliberate|prudent-inadvertent|prudent-deliberate> \
--category <migration|documentation|testing|code_quality|dead_code|code_rot|expertise|release|infrastructure|planning> \
--ai-authored <true|false> <<'EOF'
<body: 2-5 sentences — what the debt is, why it exists, observed symptoms>
EOF
The helper:
- Generates the timestamp
iditself (nodatecall needed). - Resolves filename collisions when two registrations land in the same second.
- Tracks the letter mapping in
$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA/cache/<repo-hash>/current-turn.txtso the user can drop by letter.
Slug
1–4 word kebab-case label of what the debt is. Examples: cancelled-promotion-callback, legacy-auth-shim, unfinished-rate-limiter. Keep it short — the body carries the context.
Schema notes
- Quadrant (Fowler):
reckless-inadvertent(didn't know better),reckless-deliberate(knew, did it anyway),prudent-inadvertent(learned afterward),prudent-deliberate(deliberate, with a payoff plan). - Category (Google / Jaspan-Green): pick the closest match.
- payoff_trigger: unknown is first-class. Don't manufacture a trigger to fill the field —
unknownages into stale review and that's the point. - ai_authored: true is the leading behavioral signal — be honest.
Drops
drop A,drop A,C,drop all— the user types this; a UserPromptSubmit hook deletes the matching entries and surfaces a one-line confirmation. You don't act on those.drop itordrop <slug>— you delete it yourself:rm <registry-dir>/<id>-<slug>.md(the registry dir named in Discipline 3; defaultdocs/debt/). Treat dropping as cheap — over-registering is the intended posture.
Don't
- Don't ask the developer for confirmation before writing. Discipline 1 says "no permission prompt; just do it."
- Don't use the
Writetool to create the file directly — letter assignment depends on going throughregister.py. - Don't echo or paraphrase the helper's output. The Bash tool result is already visible to the user.
- Don't fill
payoff_triggerwith a guess to seem certain.
What ships with it: 1 file
6.8 KB alongside SKILL.md, 1 of them executable
scripts/
- register.pyruns6.8 KB