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/debt-ops-metrics

Print a debt-ops health summary from the metrics log, covering registration rate, feedback action rate, ADR creation, and AI-authored share. Use when the user asks for "debt-ops metrics", "debt health", "registry stats", or a tech-debt health summary. Read-only, never writes the

shell
$ npx -y skills add bcanfield/agentic-tech-debt --skill debt-ops-metrics --agent claude-code

How it fires

How this skill gets triggered: by you, by Claude, or both.

  • Fires itselfAuto-invocation. Claude auto-loads it when your prompt matches the work.
  • You can call itInvoke it directly when you want it.
  • Slash command/debt-ops-metrics
How auto-invocation works

Context preview

The summary Claude sees to decide when to auto-load this skill.

Print a debt-ops health summary from the metrics log, covering registration rate, feedback action rate, ADR creation, and AI-authored share. Use when the user asks for "debt-ops metrics", "debt health", "registry stats", or a tech-debt health summary. Read-only, never writes the

SKILL.md

debt-ops-metrics.SKILL.md
name: debt-ops-metrics
description: Print a debt-ops health summary from the metrics log, covering registration rate, feedback action rate, ADR creation, and AI-authored share. Use when the user asks for "debt-ops metrics", "debt health", "registry stats", or a tech-debt health summary. Read-only, never writes the log.

debt-ops-metrics

Read the hidden metrics log and tell the user whether the tripwires are tripping.

1. Find the log

The repo-hash is computed in Python (not `shasum`) so this is identical across macOS, Linux, and Windows — no BSD/GNU coreutils dependency.

REPO_HASH=$(python3 -c "import hashlib,subprocess;t=subprocess.run(['git','rev-parse','--show-toplevel'],capture_output=True,text=True).stdout.strip();print(hashlib.sha1(t.encode()).hexdigest()[:12] if t else '')")

# Hooks and skills share one deterministic cache base. Override with
# DEBT_OPS_CACHE; default is ~/.cache/debt-ops.
CACHE_DIR="${DEBT_OPS_CACHE:-$HOME/.cache/debt-ops}/cache/$REPO_HASH"

LOG="$CACHE_DIR/metrics.jsonl"
if [ -n "$REPO_HASH" ] && [ -f "$LOG" ]; then
  tail -n 500 "$LOG"
else
  echo "MISSING: no metrics.jsonl found for repo hash ${REPO_HASH:-<not-a-git-repo>}"
fi

If the file is missing or empty, tell the user no debt-ops activity has been logged for this repo yet and stop. On a skills-only tool (no hook adapter), only `register` and `review` events are logged — the per-edit `edit`/`feedback`/`session` events come from the hook adapter, so feedback metrics will be absent. Say so rather than reporting them as zero.

2. The log format

One JSON object per line. Event shapes:

  • `{"event":"register","slug":"...","ai_authored":bool,"letter":"...","ts":"..."}` — each capture
  • `{"event":"review","total":N,"stale":N,"cold":N,"active":N,"ts":"..."}` — each review
  • `{"event":"edit","file":"...","registry_count":N,"ts":"..."}` — every agent edit *(hook adapter only)*
  • `{"event":"feedback","file":"...","result":"pass|fail","ts":"..."}` — every quality-check fire *(hook adapter only)*
  • `{"event":"session","registry_count":N,"adr_count":M,"ai_authored_count":K,"ts":"..."}` — start of each session *(hook adapter only)*

Timestamps are ISO-8601 UTC.

3. Compute the tripwires

Filter to the last 7 days. Then compute what the available events support:

  • **Captures / reviews** — counts of `event:register` and `event:review`.
  • **AI-authored share** — share of `register` events with `ai_authored:true`.
  • **Edits / sessions** *(hook adapter only)* — counts of `event:edit` and `event:session`.
  • **Registry growth** *(hook adapter only)* — last `registry_count` minus first.
  • **Feedback pass rate** *(hook adapter only)* — `count(result:pass) / count(event:feedback)`.
  • **FAIL → PASS rate** *(hook adapter only)* — for each `feedback` with `result:fail`,

look at the *next* feedback for the *same* file; count those that flipped to `pass`; divide by total fails. Below 50% means the agent isn't reliably acting on hook output — the architectural alarm bell.

If there are fewer than 5 data points in the window, say "need more data" and skip the verdict.

4. Report

One screen. No padding. Use `→` and `↑/↓` for trends. Mark adapter-only rows as `n/a (skills-only)` when those events are absent. Example shape:

debt-ops metrics — last 7 days
─────────────────────────────────
captures        : 7
reviews         : 2
ai-authored     : 57%

edits           : n/a (skills-only)
feedback ran    : n/a (skills-only)

verdict: ok

End with one judgment line:

  • **ok** — captures >0 (and, when available, fail→pass rate ≥50%).
  • **investigate: <reason>** — name the specific tripwire that tripped.

Don't

  • Don't write to the log.
  • Don't compute metrics not listed above.
  • Don't report adapter-only metrics as `0` on a skills-only tool — mark them `n/a`.
  • Don't guess at health when data is thin — say "need more data" instead.
Read more
Read it on GitHub ↗
Ships withagentic-tech-debt

Catches AI-introduced tech debt at write-time Works with any coding agent. Any stack. Two decades of tech-debt research, distilled into a plugin and validated across dozens of codebases.

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Python
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MIT
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1d ago
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Repo: bcanfield/agentic-tech-debt

Other skills on agentic-tech-debt.