The Agent Deleted the Comment That Explained Why the Code Looks Weird
The function looked wrong. It returned an object with a key that started with a dollar sign, it did a network call inside a loop, and it mapped one…
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The agent created a new file instead of editing the existing one. Now there are two.
The PR diff looks fine. You asked the agent to add a phone-number validator. It added a file called validation-helpers.ts with a clean, well-tested…
The Bug Is in the Files: Characterize Filesystem Side Effects Before a Messy Refactor
Conclusion first: in a messy repo, the refactor usually breaks files, not stdout. Teams write golden tests for console output. Almost nobody asserts…
Your agent keeps deprecated aliases alive forever. Make it pick a cutover date.
The refactor PR looks clean. getUserById becomes fetchUserById , the body moves to a new service file, and the tests pass. At the bottom of the diff…
A Cache Helper Moves Only After Nine Frozen Rows
A messy freshness check should not be rewritten in one pass. Freeze the observed outputs before any cleanup begins. Then move one comparison inside…
Your Agent Renamed the Function — It Just Missed the Caller That Referenced It by String
The rename that looks safe You ask the agent to rename process_payment to settle_payment . It runs across the codebase, updates every import, rename…
Your Agent Will Refactor a Working Function and Quietly Drop the Edge Case
The diff that looks like a win You hand the agent a 40-line helper that's been in production since 2022. You ask it to "clean this up." Thirty secon…
Freeze Aging Labels Before One Status Extract
Freeze Aging Labels Before One Status Extract Pin current aging labels before you trust a cleanup diff. Extract one status rule only after those lab…
Pin Apply Order Before One Discount Extract
Pin apply order before you extract one discount rule. A free coding pass can draft the smallest patch. Frozen checks still decide whether that patch…
Score the Cut, Then Extract One Pure Function
A scored cut beats a wide cleanup every time. Pick the change with the lowest caller risk. Golden tests then guard that one extract, and nothing els…
Strangling Procedural Legacy PHP into Laravel
The big bang rewrite is the most confident decision an engineering team can make and one of the worst. The pitch is always reasonable. The current s…
Your thresholds do not belong in constants
Every tuning change needed a code review, a release, and a week of store rollout. So we stopped tuning, which is the worst possible outcome. Eightee…
Freeze Object Identity Before One Mutator Extract
Extract one mutator only after tests pin object identity. Value equality alone hides alias bugs in shared containers. A copied list can match every…
A library is a basis. App code is coefficients. Refactoring is a change of basis. I use compression and sparse coding to pin down what actually counts as a "new idea" — and why frequency, not drama, earns one.
A Psychological State is a Coefficient Vector Richard Emate Richard Emate Richard Emate Follow Sep 23 A Psychological State is a Coefficient Vector…
Building a Culture of Continuous Refactoring
There is a lot of literature about how to refactor code and what techniques to apply, but sometimes we forget one important aspect: the human factor…
Pin urlencode doseq and quote_via Before One Query Extract
Pin the query-string contract before any helper extract. Extract one encoder only after those bytes stay frozen. Messy HTTP clients scatter urlencod…
Characterization Tests First, Then the Smallest Safe Change
Characterization Tests First, Then the Smallest Safe Change Stop refactoring. Start recording. The smallest safe change wins only if you can prove n…
Mainframe Migration Tools: What Works and What Fails
Every mainframe migration begins with someone searching for mainframe migration tools, and every vendor demonstration that follows looks remarkably…
My duplicate-code detector flagged the check I had just written. I deleted the duplication, not the rule.
A detector in my build looks for repeated code shapes. It caught a ten-line window shared between two checks that I had written deliberately, days a…
Mainframe Modernisation: Rewrite, Refactor or Replatform
Mainframe modernisation is rarely a single decision. It is a choice between several distinct strategies, each with a very different cost, timeline,…
Hash the Output Tree Before You Extract One Helper
A messy repo does not need a rewrite first. It needs a frozen output tree as the oracle. Then you extract one pure helper. Stop there. AI diffs look…
COBOL to C# Migration - A UK Enterprise Guide 2026
COBOL still underpins a vast amount of the software running in UK banks, insurers, public sector bodies, and large retailers. Much of it processes m…
Capture Three Channels, Then Change One Concern
Most messy-repo risk lives in silent caller contracts. Capture current observable outputs before any helper edit. Then apply the smallest safe behav…
The Smallest Safe Change: Refactor a Messy Function One Step at a Time
The biggest refactor failures come from big steps. A 200-line function turns into a rewrite. The rewrite ships with a regression. The fix is to make…
Automated Enterprise Code Refactoring Platforms: The 2026 Landscape
Refactoring at enterprise scale is a different discipline from refactoring in an IDE. Renaming a method across one service is a right-click; retirin…
The Smallest Safe Change: A Branch-Level Refactor Workflow for Messy Repos
Most refactors die quietly while the test suite stays green. The bug ships because the change was too wide. A safe refactor touches one branch at a…
Your Refactor Needs an Oracle: Characterization Tests vs. AI Diffs
AI-generated refactors fail silently. The code looks clean. The tests pass. Then a production edge case breaks. Characterization tests catch that br…
The AI Wrote the Diff. The Tests Wrote the Verdict.
The AI Wrote the Diff. The Tests Wrote the Verdict. AI refactor suggestions are hypotheses. Not facts. A free coding model rewrites your messy legac…
The Golden-File Refactor Loop: Record, Verify, Move, Commit
You do not understand the messy function. That is fine. The snapshot does not care about your understanding. Golden files turn "I think this is safe…
COBOL to Rust Migration - A UK Enterprise Guide 2026
Rust is an increasingly popular COBOL migration target for organisations that want both memory safety and high performance without a garbage collect…