Agentic Playbook #06
Claude 4 in Red-Green-Refactor
How Claude 4 transforms refactoring through incremental, test-driven improvements. AI's real value lies in guiding intelligent architectural adjustments while maintaining safety through comprehensive testing.
AI changes the economics of refactoring, but it does not remove the need for discipline. The safest pattern remains incremental change, tight feedback, and tests that define expected behavior.
In a red-green-refactor loop, an agent can help propose smaller transformations, identify duplication, and suggest architectural improvements while tests constrain the acceptable outcome.
The value is not a large speculative rewrite. The value is faster, better-supported refactoring where each step remains reviewable and reversible.