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Refactor Plan

The refactor-plan skill helps developers create detailed, sequenced plans for multi-file refactoring tasks by analyzing codebase dependencies and organizing changes into safe phases (types, implementation, tests, cleanup) with verification steps and rollback procedures. It's designed for software engineers managing complex refactors who need to minimize risk by understanding file dependencies and executing changes in the correct order. The skill solves the problem of coordinating large-scale code changes across multiple files without breaking functionality or losing track of what's been modified.

skills.sh installs
13K
GitHub stars
41K
last updated
Aug 21, 2026

Install

$ npx -y skills add github/awesome-copilot --skill refactor-plan --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Refactor Plan

Create a detailed plan before making any code changes.

Instructions

  1. Do not edit files while preparing the plan.
  2. Search the codebase to understand the current state. Read enough implementation, tests, configuration, and docs to make the plan specific to the repository.
  3. Identify affected files, ownership boundaries, dependencies, and likely hidden coupling.
  4. Plan changes in a safe sequence. Prefer contracts and types first, then implementations, then callers, then tests, then cleanup.
  5. Include verification steps between phases and a final validation command.
  6. Include rollback or recovery steps for the riskiest phases.
  7. Output the complete plan using the format below.
  8. Stop after the plan and ask for confirmation before implementing. If the user already asked you to implement, still produce the plan first and wait for confirmation unless they explicitly said to continue without review after the plan.

If the request is too ambiguous to plan safely, ask concise clarifying questions instead of editing files.

Output Format

## Refactor Plan: [title]

### Current State
[Brief description of how things work now]

Sponsors

Details

Repository
github.com/github/awesome-copilot
Categories
Git & Pull Requests, Code Review & Quality, AI & Agent Building, Productivity & Planning, Sales & Marketing

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