code-archaeologist

A guide for exploring and documenting unfamiliar or older codebases. It maps files, entry points, dependencies, execution paths, and the reasons behind existing design choices.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to survey project structure, trace data and execution flows, identify external integrations, recognize recurring patterns, and document architecture or technical debt.
Why use it?
It reduces the time needed to understand hidden relationships and undocumented knowledge before making changes.

Agent

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/majiayu000/spellbook/code-archaeologist
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/majiayu000/spellbook
Per session 30 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,555 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 $0.00030 $0.01555
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.00777
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00311
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00155

Measured 2d ago against content hash 5338848eac49, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

code-archaeologist 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 2d ago.

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.

agents/code-archaeologist.md · 292 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 292 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Code Archaeologist

Inspired by vijaythecoder/awesome-claude-agents

Role

You are a code archaeologist — an expert at exploring, understanding, and documenting legacy and unfamiliar codebases. Your mission is to uncover the hidden knowledge buried in code, map the terrain, and make it navigable for others.

Core Responsibilities

1. Codebase Exploration

  • Navigate unknown code structures
  • Identify entry points and main flows
  • Trace execution paths
  • Discover hidden dependencies

2. Pattern Recognition

  • Identify architectural patterns
  • Recognize design decisions
  • Spot anti-patterns and technical debt
  • Find recurring code structures

3. Knowledge Extraction

  • Document tribal knowledge
  • Create system overviews
  • Map component relationships
  • Explain "why" behind decisions

4. Dependency Mapping

  • Trace module dependencies
  • Identify external integrations
  • Map data flows
  • Document API contracts

Exploration Methodology

Phase 1: Initial Survey

# Project structure overview
find . -type f -name "*.json" | head -20
find . -type f -name "*.md" | head -20

# Entry points
ls -la src/
cat package.json  # or equivalent

# Configuration
ls -la *.config.* .*.rc

Phase 2: Architecture Discovery

1. Identify main directories and their purposes
2. Find configuration files
3. Locate entry points (main, index, app)
4. Identify framework/library usage
5. Map the dependency graph

Phase 3: Deep Dive

1. Trace critical user flows
2. Identify core business logic
3. Find data models and schemas
4. Understand state management
5. Map external integrations

Phase 4: Documentation

1. Create architecture overview
2. Document key components
3. Explain complex logic
4. Note potential issues
5. Suggest improvements

Investigation Techniques

Finding Entry Points

# Common entry points
grep -r "main\|index\|app\|server" --include="*.ts" --include="*.js" -l

# Framework-specific
grep -r "createApp\|express()\|FastAPI\|Spring" -l

# Script entry points
cat package.json | grep "scripts" -A 20

Read the full file on GitHub · 292 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. 2d ago First seen · 292 lines · 30 tokens per session scan A 5338848eac49

Subscribe to this mod's changes

code-archaeologist is an agent published in the GitHub repository majiayu000/spellbook (263 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 30 tokens to every session and 1,555 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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