add — register a tech-debt entry
SkillProductivityRegister a deferred decision in the debt registry. Trigger by judgment, not a marker scan, whenever a future reader would ask "why this way?": an unmade decision, stub, loosened type, bypassed check, swallowed error, a default picked "for now", or a TODO/FIXME/HACK/XXX marker. Trigger immediately whenever you defer work, or when the user invokes $add. Over-register freely; the developer drops with "drop A", "drop A,C", or "drop all".
Use add — register a tech-debt entry in Claude, ChatGPT or Ahel Desktop
Free. Sign in, add add — register a tech-debt entry and connect your AI. About a minute.
Also: Claude Code · Cursor · Codex
Then ask your AI: use the add skill
Details
Instructions available. Your AI can read the instructions. Execution depends on the setup they require.
Account requirements not reviewed. Check the skill instructions before use; Ahel provides instructions and does not run this skill.
No other account needed.
Add Ahel to your AI once: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. Then ask it to use this.
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by hashgraph-online/awesome-codex-plugins in plugins/bcanfield/agentic-tech-debt/skills/add/SKILL.md and read by Ahel’s review.
Call the bundled register.py via Bash — it lives in this skill's scripts/ directory, so reference it with the relative path below (Codex resolves it against the skill root). The helper writes the entry under the repo's detected registry dir (default docs/debt/), assigns a short batch letter (A, B, C…), and prints exactly one line: +1 entry: <slug> (<letter>). That stdout IS the user-facing announcement — add no commentary before or after.
The call
python3 scripts/register.py \
--slug <slug> \
--principal <effort, e.g. 2d, 1w, unknown> \
--interest <ongoing cost, e.g. "+30min/incident", unknown> \
--hotspot <path or module, e.g. pricing/engine.ts, unknown> \
--business-capability <e.g. checkout, billing, unknown> \
--payoff-trigger <concrete trigger, or "unknown"> \
--quadrant <reckless-inadvertent|reckless-deliberate|prudent-inadvertent|prudent-deliberate> \
--category <migration|documentation|testing|code_quality|dead_code|code_rot|expertise|release|infrastructure|planning> \
--ai-authored <true|false> <<'EOF'
<body: 2-5 sentences — what the debt is, why it exists, observed symptoms>
EOF
The helper:
- Generates the timestamp
iditself (nodatecall needed). - Resolves filename collisions when two registrations land in the same second.
- Tracks the letter mapping in
~/.cache/debt-ops/cache/<repo-hash>/current-turn.txt(override the base withDEBT_OPS_CACHE) so the user can drop by letter.
Slug
1–4 word kebab-case label of what the debt is. Examples: cancelled-promotion-callback, legacy-auth-shim, unfinished-rate-limiter. Keep it short — the body carries the context.
Schema notes
- Quadrant (Fowler):
reckless-inadvertent(didn't know better),reckless-deliberate(knew, did it anyway),prudent-inadvertent(learned afterward),prudent-deliberate(deliberate, with a payoff plan). - Category (Google / Jaspan-Green): pick the closest match.
- payoff_trigger: unknown is first-class. Don't manufacture a trigger to fill the field —
unknownages into stale review and that's the point. - ai_authored: true is the leading behavioral signal — be honest.
Drops
drop A,drop A,C,drop all— the user types this; a UserPromptSubmit hook deletes the matching entries and surfaces a one-line confirmation. You don't act on those.drop itordrop <slug>— you delete it yourself:rm <registry-dir>/<id>-<slug>.md(the registry dir named in Discipline 3; defaultdocs/debt/). Treat dropping as cheap — over-registering is the intended posture.
Don't
- Don't ask the developer for confirmation before writing. Discipline 1 says "no permission prompt; just do it."
- Don't write the file directly with an editor tool — letter assignment depends on going through
register.py. - Don't echo or paraphrase the helper's output. The Bash tool result is already visible to the user.
- Don't fill
payoff_triggerwith a guess to seem certain.
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 1k
- Forks
- 316
- Last commit
- Oct 2026
Advanced
- Item type
- skill
- Key
add-hashgraph-online- Source
- github.com/hashgraph-online/awesome-codex-plugins
github.com/hashgraph-online/awesome-codex-plugins
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