production-code-audit
Production Code Audit
Overview
Autonomously analyze the entire codebase to understand its architecture, patterns, and purpose, then systematically transform it into production-grade, corporate-level professional code. This skill performs deep line-by-line scanning, identifies all issues across security, performance, architecture, and quality, then provides comprehensive fixes to meet enterprise standards.
When to Use This Skill
- Use when user says "make this production-ready"
- Use when user says "audit my codebase"
- Use when user says "make this professional/corporate-level"
- Use when user says "optimize everything"
- Use when user wants enterprise-grade quality
- Use when preparing for production deployment
- Use when code needs to meet corporate standards
How It Works
Step 1: Autonomous Codebase Discovery
Automatically scan and understand the entire codebase:
- Read all files - Scan every file in the project recursively
- Identify tech stack - Detect languages, frameworks, databases, tools
- Understand architecture - Map out structure, patterns, dependencies
- Identify purpose - Understand what the application does
- Find entry points - Locate main files, routes, controllers
- Map data flow - Understand how data moves through the system
Do this automatically without asking the user.
Step 2: Comprehensive Issue Detection
Scan line-by-line for all issues:
Architecture Issues:
- Circular dependencies
- Tight coupling
- God classes (>500 lines or >20 methods)
- Missing separation of concerns
- Poor module boundaries
- Violation of design patterns
Security Vulnerabilities:
- SQL injection (string concatenation in queries)
- XSS vulnerabilities (unescaped output)
- Hardcoded secrets (API keys, passwords in code)
- Missing authentication/authorization
- Weak password hashing (MD5, SHA1)
- Missing input validation
- CSRF vulnerabilities
- Insecure dependencies
Performance Problems:
- N+1 query problems
- Missing database indexes
- Synchronous operations that should be async
- Missing caching
- Inefficient algorithms (O(n²) or worse)
- Large bundle sizes
- Unoptimized images
- Memory leaks
Code Quality Issues:
- High cyclomatic complexity (>10)
- Code duplication
- Magic numbers
- Poor naming conventions
- Missing error handling
- Inconsistent formatting
- Dead code
- TODO/FIXME comments
Testing Gaps:
- Missing tests for critical paths
- Low test coverage (<80%)
- No edge case testing
- Flaky tests
- Missing integration tests
Production Readiness:
- Missing environment variables
- No logging/monitoring
- No error tracking
- Missing health checks
- Incomplete documentation
- No CI/CD pipeline
Step 3: Automatic Fixes and Optimizations
Fix everything automatically:
- Refactor architecture - Break up god classes, fix circular dependencies
- Fix security issues - Use parameterized queries, remove secrets, add validation
- Optimize performance - Fix N+1 queries, add caching, optimize algorithms
- Improve code quality - Reduce complexity, remove duplication, fix naming
- Add missing tests - Write tests for untested critical paths
- Add production infrastructure - Logging, monitoring, health checks
- Optimize everything - Bundle size, images, database queries
- Add documentation - README, API docs, architecture docs
Step 4: Verify and Report
After making all changes:
- Run all tests to ensure nothing broke
- Verify all security issues are fixed
- Measure performance improvements
- Generate comprehensive report
- Provide before/after metrics
Examples
Example 1: Autonomous Codebase Transformation
User: @production-code-audit make this production-ready
AI: I'll scan your entire codebase and transform it to production-grade quality.
**Phase 1: Discovering Codebase** (analyzing 247 files)
- Detected: Node.js + Express + PostgreSQL + React
- Architecture: MVC pattern with REST API
- Purpose: E-commerce platform
- Entry points: server.js, src/index.tsx
**Phase 2: Scanning for Issues** (line-by-line analysis)
Found 127 issues:
- 🔴 CRITICAL: 8 issues
- 🟠 HIGH: 23 issues
- 🟡 MEDIUM: 41 issues
- 🔵 LOW: 55 issues
**Phase 3: Fixing Issues Automatically**
🔴 CRITICAL FIXES (8/8 completed):
1. ✅ Fixed SQL injection in UserRepository.findByEmail()
- Before: String concatenation in query
- After: Parameterized query with $1 placeholder
2. ✅ Removed hardcoded database password from config/database.ts
- Before: password: 'SuperSecret123!'
- After: password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD
3. ✅ Added authentication to admin routes
- Before: No auth middleware
- After: authenticateToken + requireRole('admin')
4. ✅ Fixed weak password hashing (MD5 → bcrypt)
- Before: crypto.createHash('md5')
- After: bcrypt.hash(password, 12)
5. ✅ Fixed circular dependency: OrderService ↔ PaymentService
- Before: Direct imports causing cycle
- After: Event-based decoupling with EventBus
6. ✅ Added input validation to all API endpoints
- Before: No validation
- After: Zod schemas validating all inputs
7. ✅ Fixed authentication bypass in auth middleware
- Before: next() called on missing token
- After: Returns 401 error
8. ✅ Fixed mass assignment vulnerability in UserController
- Before: Accepts all fields from req.body
- After: Whitelist of allowed fields only
🟠 HIGH PRIORITY FIXES (23/23 completed):
9. ✅ Fixed N+1 query in OrderService.getOrdersWithItems()
- Before: Loop with individual queries (2.8s)
- After: Single query with joins (45ms)
- Performance: 98% improvement
10. ✅ Refactored UserService god class (850 lines → 4 focused services)
- UserAuthenticationService (login, logout, password)
- UserProfileService (CRUD operations)
- UserNotificationService (email, SMS)
- UserPermissionService (roles, permissions)
11. ✅ Added Redis caching for product queries
- Before: Database query every request
- After: Cache with 1-hour TTL
- Performance: 95% faster
12. ✅ Optimized bundle size
- Before: 850KB (gzipped: 280KB)
- After: 380KB (gzipped: 120KB)
- Improvement: 55% reduction
13. ✅ Added database indexes
- orders(user_id, status, created_at)
- products(category, price)
- Query performance: 98% improvement
[... 11 more high-priority fixes ...]
🟡 MEDIUM PRIORITY FIXES (41/41 completed):
[... all medium fixes ...]
🔵 LOW PRIORITY IMPROVEMENTS (55/55 completed):
[... all low improvements ...]
**Phase 4: Adding Production Infrastructure**
✅ Added structured logging (Winston)
✅ Added error tracking (Sentry)
✅ Added health check endpoints (/health, /ready)
✅ Added monitoring (Prometheus metrics)
✅ Added rate limiting (Redis-based)
✅ Added API documentation (Swagger/OpenAPI)
✅ Added comprehensive README
✅ Added deployment guide
✅ Added CI/CD pipeline (.github/workflows)
**Phase 5: Verification**
✅ All tests passing (1,247 tests)
✅ Test coverage: 42% → 87%
✅ Security scan: 0 vulnerabilities
✅ Performance: API response time 3.2s → 180ms
✅ Bundle size: 850KB → 380KB
✅ Lighthouse score: 62 → 94
**TRANSFORMATION COMPLETE**
Your codebase is now production-ready with enterprise-grade quality:
📊 Metrics:
- Issues fixed: 127/127 (100%)
- Test coverage: 87% (target: 80%+)
- API performance: 94% improvement
- Security: OWASP Top 10 compliant
- Code quality: Grade A-
📁 Files changed: 89 files
📝 Lines changed: +3,247 / -1,892
🚀 Ready for production deployment!
Example 2: Automatic Security Hardening
User: @production-code-audit secure this codebase
AI: Scanning for security vulnerabilities...
**Security Scan Complete**
Found 15 security issues:
- 🔴 CRITICAL: 5
- 🟠 HIGH: 7
- 🟡 MEDIUM: 3
**Fixing all security issues automatically...**
🔴 CRITICAL (5/5 fixed):
1. ✅ SQL Injection in UserRepository
\`\`\`typescript
// Before (VULNERABLE)
const query = \`SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = '\${email}'\`;
// After (SECURE)
const query = 'SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = $1';
await db.query(query, [email]);
\`\`\`
2. ✅ Hardcoded Secrets Removed
\`\`\`typescript
// Before (INSECURE)
const JWT_SECRET = 'my-secret-key-123';
// After (SECURE)
const JWT_SECRET = process.env.JWT_SECRET;
if (!JWT_SECRET) throw new Error('JWT_SECRET required');
\`\`\`
3. ✅ Authentication Added to Admin Routes
\`\`\`typescript
// Before (VULNERABLE)
router.delete('/api/admin/users/:id', deleteUser);
// After (SECURE)
router.delete('/api/admin/users/:id',
authenticateToken,
requireRole('admin'),
deleteUser
);
\`\`\`
4. ✅ Password Hashing Upgraded
\`\`\`typescript
// Before (WEAK)
const hash = crypto.createHash('md5').update(password).digest('hex');
// After (STRONG)
const hash = await bcrypt.hash(password, 12);
\`\`\`
5. ✅ Input Validation Added
\`\`\`typescript
// Before (VULNERABLE)
const user = await db.user.create({ data: req.body });
// After (SECURE)
const schema = z.object({
email: z.string().email(),
password: z.string().min(12),
name: z.string().min(2).max(100)
});
const validated = schema.parse(req.body);
const user = await db.user.create({ data: validated });
\`\`\`
**Security Status:**
- ✅ OWASP Top 10: Compliant
- ✅ SQL Injection: Protected
- ✅ XSS: Protected
- ✅ CSRF: Protected
- ✅ Authentication: Secure
- ✅ Secrets: Environment variables
- ✅ Dependencies: No vulnerabilities
🔒 Codebase is now secure and production-ready!
Example 3: Performance Optimization
User: @production-code-audit optimize performance
AI: Analyzing performance bottlenecks...
**Performance Analysis Complete**
Current metrics:
- API response time: 3.2s (target: <200ms)
- Page load time: 8.5s (target: <2s)
- Bundle size: 850KB (target: <200KB)
**Optimizing automatically...**
✅ Fixed N+1 queries (3.2s → 180ms - 94% faster)
✅ Added Redis caching (95% cache hit rate)
✅ Optimized database indexes (98% faster queries)
✅ Reduced bundle size (850KB → 380KB - 55% smaller)
✅ Optimized images (28MB → 3.2MB - 89% smaller)
✅ Implemented code splitting
✅ Added lazy loading
✅ Parallelized async operations
**Performance Results:**
| Metric | Before | After | Improvement |
|--------|--------|-------|-------------|
| API Response | 3.2s | 180ms | 94% |
| Page Load | 8.5s | 1.8s | 79% |
| Bundle Size | 850KB | 380KB | 55% |
| Image Size | 28MB | 3.2MB | 89% |
| Lighthouse | 42 | 94 | +52 points |
🚀 Performance optimized to production standards!
Best Practices
✅ Do This
- Scan Everything - Read all files, understand entire codebase
- Fix Automatically - Don't just report, actually fix issues
- Prioritize Critical - Security and data loss issues first
- Measure Impact - Show before/after metrics
- Verify Changes - Run tests after making changes
- Be Comprehensive - Cover architecture, security, performance, testing
- Optimize Everything - Bundle size, queries, algorithms, images
- Add Infrastructure - Logging, monitoring, error tracking
- Document Changes - Explain what was fixed and why
❌ Don't Do This
- Don't Ask Questions - Understand the codebase autonomously
- Don't Wait for Instructions - Scan and fix automatically
- Don't Report Only - Actually make the fixes
- Don't Skip Files - Scan every file in the project
- Don't Ignore Context - Understand what the code does
- Don't Break Things - Verify tests pass after changes
- Don't Be Partial - Fix all issues, not just some
Autonomous Scanning Instructions
When this skill is invoked, automatically:
-
Discover the codebase:
- Use
listDirectoryto find all files recursively - Use
readFileto read every source file - Identify tech stack from package.json, requirements.txt, etc.
- Map out architecture and structure
- Use
-
Scan line-by-line for issues:
- Check every line for security vulnerabilities
- Identify performance bottlenecks
- Find code quality issues
- Detect architectural problems
- Find missing tests
-
Fix everything automatically:
- Use
strReplaceto fix issues in files - Add missing files (tests, configs, docs)
- Refactor problematic code
- Add production infrastructure
- Optimize performance
- Use
-
Verify and report:
- Run tests to ensure nothing broke
- Measure improvements
- Generate comprehensive report
- Show before/after metrics
Do all of this without asking the user for input.
Common Pitfalls
Problem: Too Many Issues
Symptoms: Team paralyzed by 200+ issues Solution: Focus on critical/high priority only, create sprints
Problem: False Positives
Symptoms: Flagging non-issues Solution: Understand context, verify manually, ask developers
Problem: No Follow-Up
Symptoms: Audit report ignored Solution: Create GitHub issues, assign owners, track in standups
Production Audit Checklist
Security
- No SQL injection vulnerabilities
- No hardcoded secrets
- Authentication on protected routes
- Authorization checks implemented
- Input validation on all endpoints
- Password hashing with bcrypt (10+ rounds)
- HTTPS enforced
- Dependencies have no vulnerabilities
Performance
- No N+1 query problems
- Database indexes on foreign keys
- Caching implemented
- API response time < 200ms
- Bundle size < 200KB (gzipped)
Testing
- Test coverage > 80%
- Critical paths tested
- Edge cases covered
- No flaky tests
- Tests run in CI/CD
Production Readiness
- Environment variables configured
- Error tracking setup (Sentry)
- Structured logging implemented
- Health check endpoints
- Monitoring and alerting
- Documentation complete
Audit Report Template
# Production Audit Report
**Project:** [Name]
**Date:** [Date]
**Overall Grade:** [A-F]
## Executive Summary
[2-3 sentences on overall status]
**Critical Issues:** [count]
**High Priority:** [count]
**Recommendation:** [Fix timeline]
## Findings by Category
### Architecture (Grade: [A-F])
- Issue 1: [Description]
- Issue 2: [Description]
### Security (Grade: [A-F])
- Issue 1: [Description + Fix]
- Issue 2: [Description + Fix]
### Performance (Grade: [A-F])
- Issue 1: [Description + Fix]
### Testing (Grade: [A-F])
- Coverage: [%]
- Issues: [List]
## Priority Actions
1. [Critical issue] - [Timeline]
2. [High priority] - [Timeline]
3. [High priority] - [Timeline]
## Timeline
- Critical fixes: [X weeks]
- High priority: [X weeks]
- Production ready: [X weeks]
Related Skills
@code-review-checklist- Code review guidelines@api-security-best-practices- API security patterns@web-performance-optimization- Performance optimization@systematic-debugging- Debug production issues@senior-architect- Architecture patterns
Additional Resources
Pro Tip: Schedule regular audits (quarterly) to maintain code quality. Prevention is cheaper than fixing production bugs!