Playbook
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Step 01 of 10 6-12 weeks· advanced

Step 1: Audit and Inventory

Inventory programs, copybooks, JCL, data sources, CICS resources, schedulers, integrations, and people. COBOL audits are bigger than typical legacy audits.

What you're doing in this step

Produce a comprehensive mainframe inventory: programs (count, type, LOC), copybooks (with cross-reference), JCL job streams, data sources (DB2 / VSAM / IMS / flat files), CICS resources, scheduler dependencies, external integrations, people (who knows what / retirement timeline), and existing documentation. Use mainframe analysis tools (IBM ADDI, Micro Focus Enterprise Analyzer, etc.) to accelerate.

Recommended prompts

Use one of these to do the work in your IDE

Open the template to read it in full. Click Copy prompt to grab it (with your stack values pre-filled where they apply) — then paste into Claude Code, Cursor, or wherever you build.

Primary recommendation 2-4 hours

Legacy System Audit

Reverse-engineer an existing application: structure, dependencies, integrations, business logic, hidden risks. The starting point for any migration.

View template
Template· Template varies (per program)

COBOL Business Rule Extraction

Extract business rules from COBOL programs into a structured catalog that survives the migration — even if the original COBOL doesn't.

Use this when: Pulling rules out of representative programs as part of the audit (rather than waiting for Phase 2)

cobolmainframe
View template
Template· Template 1-2 days per major job stream

COBOL Batch Job Decomposition (JCL → Modern Architecture)

Break legacy JCL job streams into modern batch (Spring Batch / .NET Worker) or event-driven architectures, preserving sequencing and dependencies.

Use this when: JCL inventory needs decomposition into target-runtime equivalents (Spring Batch / Step Functions / Airflow)

cobolmainframejavadotnet
View template
Recommended skills

Drop these into Claude Code for this phase

Skills auto-trigger on the right kind of request. Install once; they apply to every prompt that fits.

Skill· Skill 5 min setup

Legacy Code Analyzer Skill

Claude Code skill that reads legacy .NET code (WebForms, VB.NET, classic ASP) and explains what it does — the foundation for any migration.

claude-codedotnet
View skill
Skill· Skill 5 min setup

Migration Planner Skill

Flagship migration skill that walks Claude Code through audit → strategy → slicing → cutover for any legacy system migration.

claude-code
View skill
Recommended MCP configs

Wire these tools into Claude Code first

MCP servers give Claude Code direct access to external systems (Jira, browsers, databases). Configure once.

MCP config· MCP config 5 min setup

Filesystem MCP for Evoke

Pre-configured filesystem MCP server for Claude Code — safe, scoped read/write access to project files.

claude-codemcp
View config
MCP config· MCP config 10 min setup

Postgres MCP for Evoke

Pre-configured Postgres MCP server for Claude Code — schema inspection and read-only queries to make database work safer and faster.

claude-codemcppostgres
View config
MCP config· MCP config 10 min setup

Confluence MCP for Evoke

Pre-configured Atlassian Confluence MCP server for Claude Code — search, read, and write internal documentation pages from chat.

claude-codemcp
View config
When you're done

Verify these in your own work before moving on

This is a checklist for you to mentally tick off in your repo and IDE — the site doesn't track it, you do.

  • Complete program inventory (count, type, LOC, last modified)
  • Copybook hierarchy mapped
  • JCL job-stream inventory
  • Data-source inventory (DB2, VSAM, IMS, flat files)
  • CICS resource inventory
  • External integration inventory
  • Critical-path analysis: which programs / jobs are most critical
  • Workforce assessment: who knows what, retirement timeline
  • Risk register with COBOL-specific risks
  • Strategic recommendation (rewrite vs replatform vs refactor vs replace) confirmed
Common pitfalls

What goes wrong at this step

  • Underestimating program count — "we have 200 programs" usually turns into 800 once subroutines and utilities are counted
  • Missing copybook hierarchies — copybooks include other copybooks; the dependency graph matters
  • Skipping the workforce audit — if 3 of 5 COBOL developers retire mid-project, the project is in trouble
  • Trusting documentation — it's almost always incomplete and outdated
  • Not running automated analysis tools — manual analysis of millions of lines is impossibly slow
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