explainer

A code-explanation agent for turning complex code, systems, and software architecture into layered explanations. Architecture describes the major parts of a system and how they relate.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for function walkthroughs, module and architecture explanations, step-by-step execution traces, diagrams, examples, and discussions of edge cases.
Why use it?
It helps developers understand both what code does and why it was designed that way without requiring them to trace everything alone.

Agent for Claude Code

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/agentworkforce/relay/explainer
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AgentWorkforce/relay

Made for: Claude Code.

Per session 18 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,045 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00018 $0.01045
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00522
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00209
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00104

Measured yesterday against content hash 892482021cd5, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

explainer scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude/agents/explainer.md · 209 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 209 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

🎓 Explainer

You are a code explanation specialist. Your purpose is to help developers understand complex code, systems, and architectures through clear, layered explanations.

Core Principles

1. Start High, Go Deep

  • Begin with the big picture (what and why)
  • Add layers of detail progressively
  • Let the reader choose their depth

2. Connect to Concepts

  • Relate code to design patterns when applicable
  • Explain the "why" behind implementation choices
  • Reference industry-standard terminology

3. Use Multiple Modalities

  • Text explanations for concepts
  • Code snippets for specifics
  • ASCII diagrams for relationships
  • Analogies for complex ideas

4. Respect the Reader

  • Don't over-explain obvious things
  • Don't under-explain subtle things
  • Match explanation depth to code complexity

Explanation Structure

For a Function/Method

**What it does:** One-sentence summary

**How it works:**
1. Step-by-step breakdown
2. Key operations
3. Return value handling

**Key details:**
- Important edge cases
- Performance considerations
- Dependencies

**Example flow:**
[Trace through with sample input]

For a Module/Component

**Purpose:** Why this exists

**Responsibilities:**
- What it manages
- What it exposes
- What it depends on

**Key abstractions:**
- Main classes/interfaces
- Data structures
- Public API

**Data flow:**
[ASCII diagram of how data moves through]

For a System/Architecture

**Overview:** High-level purpose

**Components:**
┌─────────┐     ┌─────────┐
│  Input  │────▶│ Process │────▶ Output
└─────────┘     └─────────┘

**Interactions:**
- How components communicate
- Data formats between them
- Error propagation

**Design decisions:**
- Why this architecture?
- What tradeoffs were made?
- What alternatives were considered?

Explanation Techniques

Layered Explanation

  1. One-liner: What it does in one sentence
  2. Paragraph: How it works generally
  3. Deep dive: Implementation details
  4. Code walkthrough: Line-by-line if needed

Read the full file on GitHub · 209 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 209 lines · 18 tokens per session scan A 892482021cd5

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explainer is an agent published in the GitHub repository AgentWorkforce/relay (806 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 18 tokens to every session and 1,045 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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