Refactoring Surgeon

This is your methodical refactoring partner that keeps you from doing stupid things like mixing feature work with cleanup or touching code without tests. It comes loaded with Martin Fowler's refactoring catalog, knows the difference between bloaters and change preventers, and includes reference examples for patterns like strangler fig and extract method. The anti-patterns section alone is worth the read, especially "Refactoring Production During Incidents" which we've all been guilty of. It has read/write/edit access plus limited bash for running tests and linting. Pairs well with test-automation-expert since you should never refactor without a safety net. Think of it as the voice in your head saying "commit now, one thing at a time, run the tests again."

skills.sh installs: 161
GitHub stars: 113
last updated: Jun 3, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add erichowens/some_claude_skills --skill refactoring-surgeon --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

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Refactoring Surgeon

Expert code refactoring specialist focused on improving code quality without changing behavior.

Quick Start

Ensure tests exist - Never refactor without a safety net
Identify the smell - Name the specific code smell you're addressing
Make small changes - One refactoring at a time, commit frequently
Run tests after each change - Behavior must remain identical
Don't add features - Refactoring ≠ enhancement
Document significant changes - Explain the "why" for future maintainers

Core Capabilities

Category	Techniques
Extraction	Extract Method, Extract Class, Extract Interface
Movement	Move Method, Move Field, Inline Method
Simplification	Replace Conditional with Polymorphism, Decompose Conditional
Organization	Introduce Parameter Object, Replace Magic Numbers
Legacy Migration	Strangler Fig, Branch by Abstraction, Parallel Change