athanorlisted

# Athanor Execute a four-stage alchemical transmutation of code or data — decomposing the prima materia, purifying its essence, illuminating its target form, and synthesizing the refined output. The athanor is the furnace that maintains steady heat across all stages. ## When to Use - Transforming legacy code into modern, well-structured equivalents - Refactoring deeply tangled modules where incremental fixes keep failing - Converting a codebase from one paradigm to another (procedural to functional, monolith to modular) - Processing raw, messy data into clean analytical datasets - When simpler refactoring approaches have stalled and a full-cycle transformation is needed ## Inputs - **Required**: The material to transform (file paths, module names, or data sources) - **Required**: The desired end state (target architecture, paradigm, or format) - **Optional**: Known constraints (must preserve API, can't change database schema, etc.) - **Optional**: Prior failed transformation attempts and why they stalled ## Procedure ### Step 1: Nigredo — Decomposition Break the prima materia into its constituent elements. Nothing is sacred; everything is cataloged. 1. Inventory the material completely: - List every function, class, module, or data entity - Map all dependencies (imports, calls, data flows) - Identify hidden coupling (shared globals, implicit state, side effects) 2. Surface hidden assumptions: - What undocumented behaviors does the code rely on? - What