After weeks building a provider registry for a data‑pipeline platform, the author ended up with eight files duplicating the same static data—seeds, UUID constants, and hard‑coded service arrays for Google Cloud, AWS, and PostgreSQL. The codebase swelled to 194 files, prompting a drastic cleanup that removed roughly 5,600 lines of code.

Realizing that OAuth scopes and service selections never varied, the team replaced the tangled architecture with a single 20‑line PROVIDERS config file. Claude mapped every import, UUID reference, and component that touched the old model, then systematically updated backend Go modules and frontend TypeScript files. Comprehensive tests stayed green, exposing only one end‑to‑end bug.

The experiment demonstrates how AI‑assisted refactoring can cut technical debt when solid test coverage exists. Early‑stage services without users can afford bold deletions, avoiding migration headaches. Watch for broader adoption of tools like Claude in architecture reviews, and for teams measuring the trade‑off between flexibility and maintainability.