Agentbrisk

Best AI Agents for Refactoring Legacy Code

Refactoring is where AI agents either earn their keep or fall apart. The top picks here are the ones that read across many files at once, hold context across a long session, and produce changes a human reviewer can actually trust.

This guide is being expanded by our editorial team. Long-form analysis coming soon.

Top picks

  1. #1
    Claude Code

    Anthropic's official terminal-native AI coding agent

    codingcli
    Read review
  2. #2
    Devin

    Autonomous AI software engineer that works on tickets end to end

    codingautonomous
    Read review
  3. #3
    Cursor

    AI-first code editor built on top of VS Code

    codingide
    Read review

Related guides

ai-agent-for-coding

Frequently Asked Questions

Can AI agents really refactor legacy code safely?
They can if you keep them on a short leash. The trick is picking an agent that can read across many files, propose changes you can review in plan mode, and run your tests after each change.
Which AI agent is best for large codebases?
Claude Code is our top pick for repos over 10,000 lines. Its multi-file reasoning and plan mode mean you can review what it intends to change before it touches anything.