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Deprecation and Migration Guide

Guides an agent through safely retiring old code, APIs, features and database columns

Source Download skill
Repository
addyosmani/agent-skills
Stars
112,668
Licence
MIT
Files
1 file

What it does

When installed, the agent follows a structured process for removing old systems: deciding whether code still earns its keep, choosing advisory or compulsory deprecation, writing deprecation notices, and migrating users incrementally using patterns like strangler, adapter and feature flags. It also covers zero-downtime database schema changes using expand/contract. The file is written as guidance and example code; it does not itself change your project.

Great for

  • Engineers planning to sunset a legacy API, library or feature
  • Teams that want a checklist for migrating users off an old implementation
  • Developers renaming or dropping database columns in production without downtime

Skip it if

  • Simple one-off code deletions with no users or consumers, where the process is overkill
  • Teams expecting the agent to run migrations automatically: the skill is advice and templates, and executing changes to production data without review is risky
  • Non-technical users looking for a general project-management template

Try asking

  • “Help me plan deprecating our v1 REST API and migrating clients to v2”
  • “Decide whether we should maintain or sunset our legacy billing module”
  • “Write a deprecation notice and migration guide for our old auth library”
  • “Plan an expand/contract migration to rename a column in our production database without downtime”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Deprecation and Migration GuideInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 1 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    deprecation-and-migration.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip deprecation-and-migration.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip deprecation-and-migration.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Give the agent concrete details such as the number of consumers, the replacement system and your deploy process so the plan is specific rather than generic
  • Review any generated migration or schema change yourself before running it against production data
  • Ask the agent to apply the decision checklist first, so you confirm a replacement exists before any deprecation is announced

What's inside

  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from addyosmani/agent-skills under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.