What is Tech Debt Tracking?
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Tech debt tracking is the systematic identification, quantification, and monitoring of accumulated technical debt in a codebase: areas where expedient shortcuts were taken that will need refactoring later. In code review, it means flagging changes that add to tech debt, and changes that pay it down.
Why does tech debt tracking matter for engineering teams?
Tech debt compounds silently. Each shortcut makes the next change harder, and without tracking, teams can't prioritize refactoring. Code review is the natural place to track tech debt because every PR either adds it, pays it, or ignores it — and reviewers are the ones who see the shortcuts being taken.
How does Argus handle tech debt tracking?
Argus has no dedicated tech-debt tracker. The closest pieces: the dashboard's Memory → Files view ranks a repo's files by fan-in, bug density (critical and warning findings per 100 lines), and change frequency from past reviews, and a changed file with 3 or more past critical or warning findings is flagged as a hotspot in its review prompt. Law 6 of the Review Laws tells the reviewer model that pre-existing problems on untouched lines are out of scope for the PR; it is a prompt rule, not a filter.