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legacy-code-interpreter

Testing & Quality
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Understand and document legacy code behavior through deep analysis and behavior characterization

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/a5c-ai/babysitter/blob/HEAD/library/specializations/code-migration-modernization/skills/legacy-code-interpreter/SKILL.md

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Legacy Code Interpreter Skill

Deep analysis and interpretation of legacy code to understand undocumented behavior, extract business logic, and characterize system functionality.

Purpose

Enable legacy code understanding for:

  • Business logic extraction
  • Undocumented feature discovery
  • Behavior characterization
  • Migration planning
  • Knowledge preservation

Capabilities

1. Business Logic Extraction

  • Parse conditional logic
  • Extract calculation formulas
  • Identify validation rules
  • Document decision trees

2. Undocumented Feature Discovery

  • Find hidden functionality
  • Identify feature flags
  • Discover Easter eggs
  • Map admin features

3. Control Flow Analysis

  • Trace execution paths
  • Map state machines
  • Identify loops and recursion
  • Document entry points

4. Data Flow Tracking

  • Trace data transformations
  • Map input to output
  • Identify side effects
  • Document state changes

5. Side Effect Identification

  • Find external calls
  • Identify I/O operations
  • Map database operations
  • Document messaging

6. Behavior Characterization

  • Create behavior summaries
  • Generate pseudo-code
  • Document edge cases
  • Map error handling

Tool Integrations

ToolPurposeIntegration Method
Understand (SciTools)Deep analysisCLI / API
LattixArchitecture analysisCLI
CodeSceneBehavioral analysisAPI
SourcetrailCode explorationCLI
ast-grepPattern matchingMCP / CLI

Output Schema

{
  "analysisId": "string",
  "timestamp": "ISO8601",
  "interpretation": {
    "businessLogic": [
      {
        "name": "string",
        "location": "string",
        "description": "string",
        "pseudoCode": "string",
        "inputs": [],
        "outputs": [],
        "sideEffects": []
      }
    ],
    "controlFlow": {
      "entryPoints": [],
      "stateMachines": [],
      "criticalPaths": []
    },
    "dataFlow": {
      "transformations": [],
      "stateChanges": []
    },
    "undocumented": []
  }
}

Integration with Migration Processes

  • legacy-codebase-assessment: Primary interpretation tool
  • migration-planning-roadmap: Knowledge source

Related Skills

  • static-code-analyzer: Structural analysis
  • knowledge-extractor: Documentation mining

Related Agents

  • legacy-system-archaeologist: Uses for excavation