Strangler Fig Refactoring

Decompose an incremental refactoring into production-safe goals using the Strangler Fig pattern — build new alongside old, redirect traffic, then remove legacy. Informed by Martin Fowler's StranglerFigApplication and Shopify's incremental migration approach.

When to Use

• Extracting responsibilities from a God Object or oversized module
• Replacing a legacy component without big-bang rewrite
• Any refactor where old and new must coexist during transition
• Classes over 500 lines with multiple distinct responsibilities
• "We can't rewrite this all at once" situations

Workflow

Execute three phases interactively with the user:

Phase 1: Identify Extraction Target

1. Ask what code to refactor — the oversized class, tangled module, or legacy component
2. Read the target code and map its responsibilities (list each distinct responsibility)
3. Classify the refactor type:
   • Backend service extraction — persistent state involved, data migration likely needed
   • Frontend component extraction — UI/state extraction, typically no database migration
   • Pure code extraction — logic extraction only, no persistent state changes
   • Mixed — evaluate based on which responsibilities involve persistent state
4. Ask which responsibilities to extract, or recommend based on cohesion analysis

Phase 2: Dependency & Seam Analysis

1. Trace consumers — who calls, imports, or depends on the extraction target
2. Trace dependencies — what the target depends on (other modules, DB, external services)
3. Identify seams — natural boundaries where old and new systems can coexist
4. Assess risk:
   • Blast radius — how many callers/modules are affected
   • Data consistency risk — are there shared mutable state or transactions
   • Rollback complexity — how easy is it to undo each step
5. Determine if persistent state is involved (indicates data migration goals will be needed)

Phase 3: Decompose into Production-Safe Goals

Use strangler fig thinking and the dependency analysis from Phase 2 to identify natural goal boundaries. Each goal must be safe to merge to production independently.

Grouping heuristic: combine steps that cannot be independently verified or deployed into a single goal. A goal is the smallest unit of work that is safe to ship alone.

Production-safety criteria — a goal is production-safe if it meets at least one:

• Protected by a feature flag (default off)
• Unconsumed scaffolding (new code exists but nothing calls it yet)
• Additive-only change (no existing behavior is altered or removed)
• Safe deletion (removing code with verified zero consumers)

For each goal, provide:

• Concrete mapping: specific files, classes, tables, or components involved
• Rollback note: how to reverse this goal if problems arise
• Merge criteria: what must be true before this goal's PR is considered ready (advisory, for human reviewers)

Output format:

Goals table:

#	Goal	Description	Depends On	Production Safety
1	kebab-goal-name	What this goal accomplishes	—	Additive-only / Feature flag / etc.
2	kebab-goal-name	What this goal accomplishes	Goal 1	Unconsumed scaffolding
…	…	…	…	…

Execution Order: Describe which goals are sequential and which can be parallelized. Goals with no shared dependency can be worked in parallel by separate engineers or teams.

Merge Criteria: For each goal, document what reviewers should verify before merging. This is advisory guidance for human reviewers — not an automated gate.

Reference Framework

The 7 strangler fig steps are a reference framework for analysis during Phases 2-3. They help identify what work needs to happen but do not dictate goal boundaries. The agent groups these into production-safe goals based on the project's actual needs.

Step	What	Applies When
1. Define new interface	Create the new module/class/component with extracted responsibilities	Always
2. Redirect consumers	Update callers/importers to use the new interface	Always
3. Establish new data source	Create new storage (DB table, state store, context, cache)	Persistent state involved
4. Dual writes	Write to both old and new sources simultaneously for consistency	Persistent state involved
5. Backfill	Migrate existing data from old source to new	Historical data exists
6. Switch reads	Move read operations from old source to new	Persistent state involved
7. Remove legacy	Delete old code, old storage, old dependencies	Always

For detailed examples per refactor type, read the reference file at: plugins/harness/skills/strangler-fig/references/steps-by-context.md

For common merge criteria patterns and observation strategies, read: plugins/harness/skills/strangler-fig/references/gate-patterns.md

Output

Produce a goal dependency graph and per-goal summaries as structured content. Do NOT save files — the invoking command (/harness:refactor) handles document creation.

Key Principles

• Reversibility is the core value — every goal (except final deletion goals) should be reversible
• Transitional architecture is acceptable — temporary code enabling coexistence is not waste, it's risk reduction
• Goals have explicit dependencies — each goal declares what must be merged before it begins
• Merge criteria document deployment readiness — they are advisory checkpoints, not automated gates
• Goal count and scope varies by refactor — a simple extraction might be 2 goals; a complex service split might be 8

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Why It's Dangerous	Fix
Scoping a goal that isn't production-safe to merge independently	If the PR breaks prod when merged alone, it's not a valid goal boundary	Restructure: add a feature flag, split further, or make the change additive-only
Making goals too granular (15 PRs for a simple extraction)	Review fatigue, coordination overhead, unclear progress	Combine steps that can't be independently verified into a single goal
Making goals too coarse (one mega-PR)	Defeats the purpose of incremental safety; hard to review and impossible to roll back cleanly	Split at seams where production safety is naturally maintained
Not documenting rollback for each goal	You won't remember how to undo under incident pressure	Every goal needs a rollback note written before implementation
Not identifying which goals can parallelize	Missed opportunity to reduce calendar time	Explicitly map which goals have no shared dependency and can run in parallel

Red Flags — STOP and Reassess

• "This goal's PR would break prod if merged alone" — the goal scope is wrong; restructure it
• "We need all goals merged simultaneously" — goals aren't independent enough; find a way to sequence them safely
• "Skip the merge criteria, it obviously works" — verify anyway; obvious things fail silently in production
• "Let's just do it all in one PR" — defeats the purpose of incremental safety and eliminates the ability to roll back individual changes

All of these mean: revisit goal boundaries, restore production safety, then proceed.