Legacy code often cannot build locally by nature — CICS/IMS programs
have no local translator and the real runtime may be a mainframe the
user doesn't have. Stopping transform on a failed legacy smoke compile
would block exactly those systems.
- transform Step 0a: the target toolchain remains required (its tests
cannot run without it); a failed or impossible legacy compile no
longer stops the run — the equivalence strategy switches to recorded
traces / golden-master fixtures, and that downgrade is stated in the
plan and in TRANSFORMATION_NOTES.md so reviewers know the strength of
the proof
- preflight: a red legacy toolchain now yields Ready-with-gaps for
transform/reimagine instead of Not-ready
Viewer (assets/topology-viewer.html):
- inline a minified d3 subset (hierarchy/pack, zoom, selection,
interpolateZoom, ease; ISC license) instead of loading from a CDN —
the page is now fully self-contained and works on air-gapped networks
- handle duplicate node ids (unique-suffix; edges bind to the first
occurrence) and store parent references directly, fixing
level-of-detail and selection corruption with messy generated data
- share one reveal rule between drawing, edge culling, and hit-testing
so edges no longer draw into collapsed containers
- pre-bucket edges by kind and keep a per-node adjacency map; the
hover/selection pass no longer scans every edge each frame
- cancel in-flight fly-to animations when a new one starts; clamp
fly-to zoom to the zoom extent; derive max zoom from the smallest
leaf so deep estates stay reachable
- render dead-end candidates (new deadEnds field) with a dashed
outline and a sidebar badge
- clicking a node during a flow walkthrough exits the walkthrough;
search results clear on selection and Escape; surrogate-safe label
truncation; clearer stats line; explicit empty-topology message
Commands:
- new /modernize-status: read-only progress report — artifact inventory
with timestamps, staleness flags, secrets-hygiene checks, next step
- map: deadEnds in the topology schema; datastore names must be logical
identifiers with credentials stripped from URLs/DSNs
- brief: read topology.json + .mmd files (not the interactive HTML);
staleness check against inputs; effort unit aligned to person-months
- transform: secret-safe characterization-test prompt; diff -y fallback
when delta is missing; credential-safe diff selection
- reimagine: target vision is everything after the first argument (was
silently truncated to one word); masking rules in spec/scaffold/
handoff prompts
- brief/transform/reimagine: human-approval gates phrased as explicit
stop-and-wait instead of 'enter plan mode'
- preflight: delta in the tool table; brief added to the verdict list
- README: preflight/status in the workflow; legacy/ deny list also
covers Write; plugin + marketplace descriptions updated
Fixes from an adversarial review of the new viewer:
- pin d3 to 7.9.0 and load it via dynamic import with an explicit
error panel when the CDN is unreachable (previously a blocked CDN
produced a silent dark page — a real concern for restricted networks)
- coerce ids/names/loc at intake: a single missing name or non-numeric
loc previously threw inside the render loop or propagated NaN through
the pack layout, blanking the canvas with no error
- normalize flows/steps/edges defensively (null entries, missing steps,
numeric ids vs string lookups)
- mirror the level-of-detail reveal rule in the hit test so clicks
can't select nodes that aren't drawn
- scope the Escape shortcut so clearing the search box doesn't reset
the viewport; set zoom clickDistance(4) so trackpad jitter doesn't
swallow selection clicks
- round canvas backing-store size (fractional devicePixelRatio caused
a reallocation every frame on 125%/150% display scaling)
- modernize-map: use braced ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} so substitution
actually happens, assert the injection marker exists in the template,
and correct the documented failure mode
modernize-map previously rendered the call graph and data lineage as
static Mermaid diagrams, which become unreadable once a node has ~10+
edges — exactly the shape of real legacy systems. It now builds an
interactive viewer from a shipped template (assets/topology-viewer.html):
a zoomable circle-pack of domains/modules sized by LOC, rendered to
canvas with level-of-detail reveal, dependency edges with per-kind
toggles, search with fly-to, a per-node detail sidebar, and a flow
walkthrough mode. Small domain-level .mmd exports remain for docs.
- topology.json now has a documented schema (hierarchy + edges + entry
points + observations + flows) consumed by the viewer
- map traces 2-4 business flows anchored to personas (claimant,
operator, auditor), each step in plain business language mapped to
the modules that implement it; the viewer plays them as numbered
paths
- brief gains a Business Walkthroughs section connecting each persona
flow to the phase that replaces it
- new modernize-preflight command: detects the stack, checks analysis
tooling, smoke-compiles a real source file with the legacy toolchain,
inventories missing copybooks/descriptors/binary-only artifacts, and
writes a per-command readiness verdict
- transform now verifies legacy + target toolchains before its plan
gate instead of failing at test time
- README: commands updated, optional-tooling section reframed as 'what
to give Claude'
assess only added SECRETS.local.md to analysis/.gitignore, leaving
*.local.patch uncovered until harden's own Step 0 ran. Both patterns are
now written by whichever command runs first.
A red-team pass found four ways credential values still reached
shareable artifacts after the initial redaction:
- the remediation patch: a diff removing a hardcoded secret carries the
raw value on its '-' lines by construction. harden now splits output:
non-credential hunks in the shareable security_remediation.patch,
credential hunks in a gitignored security_remediation.local.patch
with comment-only placeholders in the shareable file
- the other four agents had no secret-handling rules. legacy-analyst
(hardcoded-config evidence in tech-debt findings),
business-rules-extractor (credentials recorded as rule parameters),
test-engineer (legacy literals becoming committed test fixtures), and
architecture-critic (quoted code in notes files) now all mask values
and cite file:line; assess's tech-debt prompt and ASSESSMENT.md
masking now cover every section, not just Security Findings
- non-git projects: a .gitignore protects nothing under SVN/Mercurial.
Both commands now refuse --show-secrets without git and write the
quarantine file to ~/.modernize/<system>/ outside the project tree
- the patch-apply instruction was wrong in both documented layouts
(symlinked legacy/ broke relative paths). Patches are now written
with project-root-relative paths and applied from the project root
Also: --show-secrets is now position-independent in both commands, and
the README documents the full model.
Legacy systems often contain live credentials, and assessment/findings
files get committed and shared. Previously the security-auditor agent
reported hardcoded secrets verbatim into ASSESSMENT.md and
SECURITY_FINDINGS.md.
- security-auditor: mandatory secret-handling rules — mask all credential
values (file:line + 2-4 char preview), redact secrets from echoed tool
output, recommend rotation for anything that looks live
- assess/harden: gitignore-verified SECRETS.local.md quarantine file for
the per-credential inventory; findings files get masked entries and a
pointer only
- new --show-secrets flag opts into raw values in the quarantine file
(and only there)
- README: document the behavior and advise users of earlier versions to
check for already-committed findings and rotate
- modernize-harden: never edits legacy/ anymore. Writes findings plus a
reviewed unified diff to analysis/<system>/security_remediation.patch.
A second security-auditor pass reviews each hunk (RESOLVES / PARTIAL /
INTRODUCES-RISK) before presenting. The user reviews and applies the
patch deliberately, then re-runs to verify. This makes every command
consistent with the recommended deny Edit(legacy/**) workspace setting,
so the README's exception note is gone.
- modernize-map: restructure the parse-target list around three stack-
agnostic principles (dispatcher targets are variables; code-storage
joins live in config; entry points live in deployment descriptors), with
COBOL/Java/web/CLI examples on equal footing rather than COBOL-dominant.
Same protections against false dead-code findings, less stack-specific.
- security-auditor agent: rephrase coverage items in stack-neutral terms
(record layouts/temp datasets, resource ACLs, deployment scripts/job
definitions, batch input records) so the checklist reads naturally for
COBOL, Java EE, .NET, and web targets alike.
- README: drop the harden exception note; describe the patch workflow.
Fixes found by running the discovery workflow against the AWS CardDemo
mainframe sample (~50 KLOC of COBOL/CICS/JCL/BMS/VSAM):
- modernize-assess: add scc -> cloc -> find/wc fallback chain with the
COCOMO-II formula so Step 1 works when scc isn't installed; same for
portfolio-mode cloc/lizard. Drop the reference to a specific
agent-spawning tool name (just "in parallel"). Sharpen the structural-
map subagent prompt: 5-12 domains, subgraph clustering, ~40-edge cap,
repo-relative paths, dangling-reference check.
- modernize-map: expand the parse-target list with the things a
literal-minded reader would miss on a real mainframe codebase — CICS
CSD DEFINE TRANSACTION/FILE for entry points and online file I/O,
EXEC CICS file ops, SELECT...ASSIGN TO joined with JCL DD,
EXEC SQL table refs (not JCL DD), SEND/RECEIVE MAP, dynamic
data-name XCTL resolution, COBOL fixed-format column slicing. Without
these the dead-code list is wrong (most CICS programs look unreachable).
Also write a machine-readable topology.json alongside the summary.
- modernize-extract-rules: add a Priority (P0/P1/P2) field with a
heuristic, and an optional Suspected-defect field. modernize-brief
reads P0 rules to build the behavior contract, but the Rule Card had
no priority slot — the chain was broken.
- modernize-brief: read the new P0 tags; flag low-confidence P0 rules as
SME blockers.
- modernize-reimagine: drop "for the demo" wording.
- security-auditor agent: add mainframe/COBOL coverage items (RACF,
JCL/PROC creds, BMS field validation, DB2 dynamic SQL, copybook PII)
and mark web-only items as such so it adapts to the target stack.
- README: add Optional Tooling section and a symlink example for the
expected layout.
- modernize-brief: read TOPOLOGY.html (what modernize-map actually
produces) instead of nonexistent TOPOLOGY.md, and tell the user which
command produces each missing input.
- README: rewrite the Commands section to match actual command behavior —
correct output filenames, ordering (brief is the synthesis/approval gate
after discovery, not the first step), agent attributions, and required
args. Add a workspace-layout note and an explicit callout that
modernize-harden edits legacy/, which conflicts with the recommended
deny rule. Reconcile the Overview and Typical Workflow sequences.
- modernize-assess: generalize the production-runtime overlay step so it
no longer assumes a specific MCP server/tool; mark it optional. Fix
app/jcl/ -> legacy/$1/jcl/ for layout consistency.
- modernize-map: make TOPOLOGY.html self-contained (load Mermaid from a
CDN) so it renders in any browser; drop assumptions about an external
artifact renderer. Generalize the telemetry annotation note.
- business-rules-extractor agent: fix command cross-reference to the
actual command name.
- plugin.json: include the brief step in the workflow description.
