Coder to Conductor · Research Paper

08 To Refactor or Not to Refactor

Published 25 May 2026 PDF 1 resource
The classic refactor-versus-rewrite calculation has been inverted. When agents can rebuild a system from intent in days rather than the years a team would have needed, carrying inherited technical debt forward becomes the more expensive option. The paper, dedicated "for every engineer pushing the same boulder up the same hill, one more time," argues that agentic rebuild now beats refactoring for a wide class of legacy systems and provides the economic framing to know which.

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To Refactor or Not to Refactor - Why AI rebuilds now beat refactoring
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The Paper

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