/techdebt

name: techdebt
description: Analyze Elixir/Phoenix technical debt — duplicates, refactoring opportunities, credo issues. Use when asked about code quality, cleanup, or what to improve.
effort: medium

Technical Debt Detection

Find and eliminate duplicate code patterns, anti-patterns, and refactoring opportunities in Elixir/Phoenix projects.

Iron Laws - Never Violate These

1. **Search before refactoring** - Understand full scope of duplication before extracting 2. **Three strikes rule** - Extract shared code only after 3+ duplications 3. **Prefer composition** - Use behaviours and protocols over inheritance-style abstractions 4. **Test coverage first** - Ensure tests exist before refactoring duplicated code

Analysis Checklist

1. Run Credo for Automated Detection

Run `mix credo --strict`.

Focus on:

• Design issues (duplication, complexity)
• Consistency issues (naming, patterns)
• Refactoring opportunities

2. Find Duplicate Ecto Query Patterns

Use Grep to search for repeated Repo calls (`Repo.get!`, `Repo.get`, `Repo.one`) in `lib/**/*.ex`. Use Grep to find duplicate query patterns (`from.*in.*where`) in `lib/**/*.ex`.

3. Find Duplicate Validation Logic

Use Grep with `output_mode: "count"` to count `def changeset` occurrences in `lib/**/*.ex`. Use Grep to find repeated validations (`validate_required`, `validate_format`) in `lib/**/*.ex`.

4. Find Copy-Pasted Controller Actions

Use Grep to find similar action patterns (`def create`, `def update`, `def delete`) in `lib/*_web/**/*.ex`.

Common Duplication Patterns

| Pattern | Symptom | Solution | |---------|---------|----------| | Repeated queries | Same `Repo.get` in multiple contexts | Create shared query module | | Duplicate validations | Same `validate_*` calls | Extract to shared changeset | | Similar controllers | Copy-pasted CRUD actions | Use Phoenix generators consistently | | Repeated transforms | Same `Enum.map` patterns | Extract to domain module |

Reporting Format

For each duplication found, report:

1. **Location**: File paths and line numbers 2. **Pattern**: What code is duplicated 3. **Extraction**: Suggested shared function/module 4. **Effort**: Low/Medium/High to fix

Usage

Run `/phx:techdebt` to analyze the codebase and generate a prioritized report of technical debt with specific remediation steps.