skill-tech-debtlisted

# Skill: Tech Debt Management Track, prioritize, and pay down tech debt systematically. Don't let it spiral. ## Tech Debt Scoring **Impact × Effort Matrix**: ``` LOW EFFORT → HIGH EFFORT HIGH | Quick wins | Strategic | IMPACT | | | LOW | Skip (low ROI)| Avoid | ``` **Quick wins**: High impact, low effort → Do first **Strategic**: High impact, high effort → Plan next quarter **Skip**: Low impact, any effort → Only if free time ## Inventory Template ``` ## Tech Debt Inventory: [Service] ### CRITICAL (Ship next sprint) - [ ] Remove Python 2 support (ends 2025, blockers future deps) - Effort: 2 weeks - Impact: Unblocks 5 dependencies - Owner: Backend lead ### HIGH (Backlog, 10% capacity/sprint) - [ ] Refactor auth middleware (5 places copy-pasted) - Effort: 1 week - Impact: Reduces bugs, improves maintainability - Owner: TBD ### MEDIUM (Nice to have) - [ ] Extract common utils from 3 services - Effort: 3 weeks (spans services) - Impact: Code reuse ### LOW (Skip unless free time) - [ ] Rename internal variable - Effort: 1 hour - Impact: Readability (minimal) ``` ## Paydown Strategy **Allocate 10% of sprint to tech debt**: - 80% features (business value) - 10% tech debt (internal quality) - 10% bugs (production stability) **Communicate ROI**: ``` Tech debt paydown: Remove Python 2 support - Effort: 2 weeks (1 engineer) - Unblocks: 5 dependencies (new features) - Prevents: 3+ security issues (old Python