technical-debt-auditor

Audits repositories for technical debt and generates scored DEBT.md reports with ROI-ordered fixes.

4|2|Updated Jan 27, 2026
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/Arete-Consortium/ai-skills --skill technical-debt-auditor-arete-consortium
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent▼
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: technical-debt-auditor
Source: https://github.com/Arete-Consortium/ai-skills/tree/main/agents/analysis/technical-debt-auditor
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/Arete-Consortium/ai-skills --skill technical-debt-auditor-arete-consortium

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill requires pip-audit, and includes references (resource) components.

What problem does it solve? Engineering teams lack a consistent, repeatable way to measure repository health across security, correctness, infrastructure, maintainability, documentation, and freshness, making it hard to prioritize debt remediation or compare multiple projects. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Six-Category Scoring: Scans for hardcoded secrets, dependency vulnerabilities, test coverage, CI/CD configuration, TODO/FIXME counts, README quality, and dependency staleness, scoring each category 0-10 against a defined rubric. - Sandboxed Runtime Verification: Builds and tests repositories inside Docker containers with memory, CPU, and network limits so untrusted code never runs on the host. - Portfolio and Diff Modes: Aggregates per-repo results into a PORTFOLIO-HEALTH.md comparison matrix and diffs against previous DEBT.md files to track improvement or regression over time. - Use Case: Before open-sourcing a project or applying for jobs, run a portfolio audit across all your GitHub repositories to find which ones have missing LICENSE files, failing tests, or exposed secrets, then follow the ROI-ordered fix plan. ## Quick Start Ask Claude to audit this repository with the technical-debt-auditor skill and generate a DEBT.md report in the repo root.

Frequently Asked Questions about technical-debt-auditor

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I audit a repository for technical debt?▼

Point the auditor at an absolute repository path and it runs a five-stage pipeline: static scan, Docker-sandboxed execution, scoring, DEBT.md report generation, and optional portfolio aggregation. Each of the six categories receives a 0-10 score with evidence-based justification.

What does a technical debt audit check for?▼

The audit covers six categories: hardcoded secrets and dependency vulnerabilities, test existence and pass rates, CI/CD and Docker configuration, TODO/FIXME counts and code structure, README and LICENSE quality, and commit recency plus dependency staleness.

Does the auditor run untrusted repository code safely?▼

Yes, all runtime verification happens inside Docker containers with a 512MB memory limit, disabled networking, read-only filesystem, and no-new-privileges flags. If Docker is unavailable, the executor step is skipped and the report notes the limitation.

Can I track technical debt improvement over time?▼

Yes, diff mode compares the current audit against a previous DEBT.md in the repository, showing per-category score changes, improvements, and regressions. The overall trend is flagged when scores shift by more than two points.

Will the auditor fix the issues it finds?▼

No, the skill is strictly audit-only by design. It documents findings, scores them, and produces ROI-ordered fix recommendations with effort estimates, but never modifies code or commits anything to git.

What happens when the audit finds exposed secrets?▼

Detected secrets trigger an immediate warning to the user before the audit continues, and the overall health score is capped at 3.0 regardless of other category scores. This security blocker rule is non-negotiable in the scoring rubric.