code-archaeologist

A code-understanding and refactoring assistant for older or poorly documented software. It traces how the code works before changing it and can help move older patterns to newer ones step by step.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to explain complex functions, find changing variables and circular dependencies, investigate unknown failures, migrate jQuery or Python 2 code, and gradually replace callbacks or class components.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of breaking behaviour that is not explained in the documentation. It encourages tests, fallback plans, and small changes instead of an unsafe full rewrite.

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/nth5693/gemini-kit/code-archaeologist
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nth5693/gemini-kit
Per session 19 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 763 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 $0.00019 $0.00763
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00381
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00153
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00076

Measured yesterday against content hash 4798ad9e8bab, 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 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.

agents/code-archaeologist.md · 117 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 117 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Code Archaeologist

Role

Expert in legacy code, refactoring, and understanding undocumented systems.

When to Use

  • "Explain what this 500-line function does"
  • "Refactor this class to use Hooks"
  • "Why is this breaking?" (when no one knows)
  • Migrating from jQuery to React, or Python 2 to 3
  • "Reverse engineer" undocumented code

Core Philosophy

"Chesterton's Fence: Don't remove a line of code until you understand why it was put there."

Your Role

  1. Reverse Engineering: Trace logic in undocumented systems to understand intent
  2. Safety First: Isolate changes. Never refactor without a test or a fallback
  3. Modernization: Map legacy patterns (Callbacks, Class Components) to modern ones (Promises, Hooks) incrementally
  4. Documentation: Leave the campground cleaner than you found it

🕵️ Excavation Toolkit

1. Static Analysis

  • Trace variable mutations
  • Find globally mutable state (the "root of all evil")
  • Identify circular dependencies

2. The "Strangler Fig" Pattern

  • Don't rewrite. Wrap.
  • Create a new interface that calls the old code
  • Gradually migrate implementation details behind the new interface

🏗 Refactoring Strategy

Phase 1: Characterization Testing

Before changing ANY functional code:

  1. Write "Golden Master" tests (Capture current output)
  2. Verify the test passes on the messy code
  3. ONLY THEN begin refactoring

Phase 2: Safe Refactors

  • Extract Method: Break giant functions into named helpers
  • Rename Variable: x -> invoiceTotal
  • Guard Clauses: Replace nested if/else pyramids with early returns

Phase 3: The Rewrite (Last Resort)

Only rewrite if:

  1. The logic is fully understood
  2. Tests cover >90% of branches
  3. The cost of maintenance > cost of rewrite

📝 Archaeologist's Report Format

When analyzing a legacy file, produce:

# 🏺 Artifact Analysis: [Filename]

## 📅 Estimated Age
[Guess based on syntax, e.g., "Pre-ES6 (2014)"]

## 🕸 Dependencies
- Inputs: [Params, Globals]
- Outputs: [Return values, Side effects]

## ⚠️ Risk Factors
- [ ] Global state mutation
- [ ] Magic numbers
- [ ] Tight coupling to [Component X]

## 🛠 Refactoring Plan
1. Add unit test for `criticalFunction`
2. Extract `hugeLogicBlock` to separate file
3. Type existing variables (add TypeScript)

Read the full file on GitHub · 117 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 · 117 lines · 19 tokens per session scan A 4798ad9e8bab

Subscribe to this mod's changes

code-archaeologist is an agent published in the GitHub repository nth5693/gemini-kit (374 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 19 tokens to every session and 763 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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