Amazon Q Refactoring Prompt Template

How to use this prompt

1. 1

   Open Amazon Q

   Open Amazon Q in your IDE or the AWS console and paste the prompt.

2. 2

   Give it context

   Name the AWS services, regions and resources involved, and paste the relevant code or configuration.

3. 3

   Review and iterate

   Ask follow-ups in the same chat, and test changes in a non-production account first.

Working in Amazon Q

• •Amazon Q is built for AWS work, so name the services (for example Lambda, S3, IAM) your question involves.
• •Never paste credentials or secret values; describe the IAM setup instead.
• •For infrastructure changes, ask for the change as code (CloudFormation, CDK or Terraform) so you can review it.

Worked example

Language: Python 3.12
What bothers me: too much nesting, and it is hard to see the free shipping rule.
Keep signature: yes. No new dependencies.

def shipping_cost(order):
    if order is not None:
        if order.country == "US":
            if order.total >= 50:
                return 0
            else:
                return 5
        else:
            return 15
    else:
        raise ValueError("order required")

1. Refactored code:
def shipping_cost(order):
    if order is None:
        raise ValueError("order required")
    if order.country != "US":
        return 15
    return 0 if order.total >= 50 else 5

2. Changes:
1. Moved the None check to the top as a guard clause, so the error case exits first.
2. Inverted the country check, which removes a level of nesting.
3. Collapsed the final if/else into a conditional expression.

3. Behavior check: identical for all inputs. Same exception, same message, same return values.

Tips for better results

• •Be specific in "What bothers me about it." Naming one smell, like duplicated validation, gets a focused refactor instead of a rewrite.
• •Keep the instruction to report bugs separately. Mixing bug fixes into a refactor makes the diff hard to trust.
• •Never paste credentials or secret values; describe the IAM setup instead.
• •Avoid this: Refactoring code that has no tests, so there is no way to confirm the behavior really stayed the same.

Variations

Add this line to Instructions: Before refactoring, write tests that pin down the current behavior, then show they still pass.

Change Output format to: Show each change as a separate before and after snippet so I can apply them one at a time.

Replace What bothers me with: Pull the logic for [specific task] into its own well-named function.

Frequently asked questions

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