explain-simple

A command that explains a file or folder in very simple words. It focuses on what the code does, why it exists, and how it fits with the rest of the project.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to understand a single file or the main purpose of a folder. It is useful when learning a project, onboarding, or preparing to change code.
Why use it?
It helps people understand unfamiliar code without needing deep programming knowledge or reading implementation details.

Command 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 commands/benkapner/claude-code-basecamp/explain-simple
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Benkapner/claude-code-basecamp

Made for: Claude Code.

Per session 32 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 733 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 $0.00032 $0.00733
Opus 5 $0.00016 $0.00367
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00147
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00073

Measured 2d ago against content hash 1b9135a57937, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

explain-simple 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.

.claude/commands/explain-simple.md · 81 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 81 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Explain Simple

Explain code like you're talking to a smart 15-year-old who has never programmed. No jargon. No implementation details. Just what it does, why it exists, and how it fits into the bigger picture.

Instructions

1. Read the Target

  • Read the file or folder specified in $ARGUMENTS
  • If it's a folder, read the key files to understand the overall purpose
  • If it's a single file, understand what it does in context

2. Explain Simply

Write an explanation that follows these rules:

  • No jargon. Don't say "API endpoint", say "a way for other programs to ask for data." Don't say "parses JSON", say "reads a data file."
  • Use analogies. Compare to real-world things. A pipeline is like an assembly line. A config file is like a settings menu. A function is like a recipe.
  • Start with WHY. Before explaining what it does, explain why someone built it. What problem does it solve?
  • Short sentences. If a sentence has a comma, consider splitting it.
  • No code. Don't show code snippets. If you must reference something technical, explain it immediately.
  • Structure it: What is this? → Why does it exist? → How does it work (simply)? → How does it connect to the rest of the project?

3. Format

What is this?
[1-2 sentences]

Why does it exist?
[1-2 sentences about the problem it solves]

How does it work?
[3-5 bullet points, simple language, analogies welcome]

How does it fit in?
[1-2 sentences about where it sits in the bigger project]

Example

For a file like scripts/fetch_data.py:

What is this?
This is a script that downloads records from an external API.

Why does it exist?
We want to know what everyone is working on, but that information is scattered across
thousands of tickets. This script collects all of them automatically.

How does it work?
- It goes through a list of people and looks up their tickets, one person at a time
- It's polite about it — if the server says "slow down", it waits before asking again
- For each ticket, it also grabs the parent project it belongs to, so we get the full picture
- It saves everything into one big file that other scripts can use later

How does it fit in?
This is step 2 of 4. First we get the list of people (step 1), then this script gets their
work data, then another script summarizes what each person does (step 3), and finally
everything gets organized into a report (step 4).

Read the full file on GitHub · 81 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 · 81 lines · 32 tokens per session scan A 1b9135a57937

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explain-simple is a command published in the GitHub repository Benkapner/claude-code-basecamp (16 stars, last pushed 13d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 32 tokens to every session and 733 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.