Repository Maintenance

---
name: repository-maintenance
description: "Repository upkeep: fix tools, checks, dead code, stale config, and ignore files."
license: MIT
metadata:
  kind: task
  author: Médéric HURIER (Fmind)
  source: github.com/fmind/dot/tree/main/skills/repository-maintenance
  created: "2026-09-02"
  updated: "2026-10-06"
---

# Repository Maintenance

The recurring pass that makes an existing repository current, consistent, simple, and working; it fixes in place and proves the result with the gate. [repository-review](../repository-review/SKILL.md) owns the read-only audit with ranked findings; [full-review](../full-review/SKILL.md) owns the exhaustive pass that reads every tracked area across all review dimensions before fixing. This pass covers the upkeep areas below without a coverage inventory; deployments, registries, and external services stay out of scope.

## Workflow

1. **Baseline**: record `git status --short`; reuse passing evidence for unchanged inputs and run missing checks through the repository tasks. Distinguish existing failures from regressions and preserve unrelated user work.
1. **Upgrade one ecosystem at a time**: only when requested or needed for a confirmed fix, with validation per [upgrade-tools](../upgrade-tools/SKILL.md).
1. **Align with the stack owner**: compare the repository with its stack owner (such as [python-stack](../python-stack/SKILL.md)) and the [bootstrap layer](../project-scaffolding/references/bootstrap.md) to resolve gaps; preserve established project choices unless changing them fixes an observed problem or fulfills the request.
1. **Route hooks and CI through mise tasks**: `mise.toml` exposes the canonical task vocabulary per [mise](../mise/SKILL.md); hooks and CI call those tasks per [lefthook](../github-actions/references/lefthook.md) and [github-actions](../github-actions/references/ci-cd/GUIDE.md).
1. **Cut unearned complexity**: remove dead code, duplicated logic, stale config, unused dependencies, and abstractions that do not earn their maintenance cost.
1. **Reconcile ignore files** with the stack per [update-ignores](references/update-ignores/GUIDE.md); for an ignore-only request, run that guide alone.
1. **Run the adopted security scans**: use [code-security](../code-security/references/code-review/GUIDE.md) for broader security work when the requested scope calls for it.
1. **Synchronize the docs**: create or synchronize `README.md`, `AGENTS.md`, skills, and wider docs per [repository-docs](../repository-docs/SKILL.md).
1. **Promote repeated instructions into skills**: place them in `.agents/skills/` per [skillify](../skillify/SKILL.md).
1. **Final gate**: Run the full gate (`mise run all`); when the tree carries unrelated changes, apply the [dirty-tree rule](../mise/SKILL.md#gotchas).
1. **Report**: what changed per area (the tree holds only intended changes), what was left alone and why, and the highest proven rung of the [proof ladder](../production-readiness/SKILL.md).

## Task guides

<!-- guides:start -->

- [update-ignores](references/update-ignores/GUIDE.md): Audit and fix .gitignore, .ignore, .dockerignore, and tool excludes for the stack.

<!-- guides:end -->

## Documentation

- [mise tasks](https://mise.jdx.dev/tasks/) — the gate vocabulary this pass proves.
- Companion skills: [repository-review](../repository-review/SKILL.md) (audit only), [project-scaffolding](../project-scaffolding/references/bootstrap.md) (bootstrap layer), [git-add-commit-push](../git-delivery/references/git-add-commit-push.md) (commit on request).