# Old design choices that now cost you

Prompt · Architecture and hidden complexity · A05

Separates old design choices that now cost real time or bugs from ones that are only out of fashion.

## Prompt

```text
Look for architectural decisions that were reasonable when this project was smaller but are now liabilities. Distinguish actual problems from stylistic preferences.
```

**What it returns:** Each decision with the original reason, the current cost (incidents, workarounds, slow paths) and evidence for that cost.

**Skip it when:** Projects younger than a few months.

**Tools:** Repository and its git history.

**Changes:** Changes nothing

**Sessions:** One session

## Skills

- [improve-codebase-architecture](https://www.atlasscope.dev/skills/improve-codebase-architecture): Scan a codebase for deepening opportunities, present them as a visual HTML report, then grill through whichever one you pick.
- [recommend](https://www.atlasscope.dev/skills/recommend): Use only when Austin explicitly invokes /recommend or $recommend.

## Related

- [Layers that don't earn their keep](https://www.atlasscope.dev/prompts/layers-that-dont-earn-their-keep): Finds extra layers of code you could delete so the code, and the agents reading it, get simpler.
- [What breaks at ten times the size](https://www.atlasscope.dev/prompts/what-breaks-at-ten-times-the-size): Names the first thing to break if the project takes off, before it does.

Source: https://www.atlasscope.dev/prompts/old-design-choices-that-now-cost-you