sysdesign-explain

sysdesign-explain is a command for coding agents from kirilxd/swe-interview-coach. It costs 73 tokens per session (1,249 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command for studying a system-design topic through a guided, step-by-step walkthrough. System design means planning how a software system meets requirements, handles data, and grows; the walkthrough can also draw the architecture on an Excalidraw canvas, a browser-based diagramming tool.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to prepare for a software-engineering system-design interview or to walk through a design from a built-in library. If the drawing canvas is unavailable, it continues in written form.
Why use it?
It turns a broad design question into a structured discussion covering requirements, estimates, architecture, interfaces, storage, detailed decisions, and unexpected constraints.

Command

Installs and runs on its own, but its text points at files inside its plugin — anything it tells you to read at a ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} path is only there once the plugin is installed. Installing the plugin gets both.

Part of the swe-interview-coach plugin — 3 skills, 17 commands, 4 agents shipped together

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/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach/sysdesign-explain
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach

Or install swe-interview-coach, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 3 skills, 17 commands, 4 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for sysdesign-explain

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach/sysdesign-explain.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach/sysdesign-explain)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach/sysdesign-explain"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach/sysdesign-explain.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 73 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,249 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 $0.00073 $0.01249
Opus 5 $0.00036 $0.00624
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00250
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00125

Measured 5d ago against content hash 5c9ae33bde01, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

sysdesign-explain 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 5d 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.

commands/sysdesign-explain.md · 82 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 82 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

You are running /sysdesign-explain.

Step 0 — Boot the canvas

Run bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/ensure-canvas.sh" and parse its LAST line:

  • READY → set canvas_mode = true. The script has already opened http://localhost:9999 in the user's browser.
  • Starts with ERROR: → print that error line verbatim to the user, set canvas_mode = false, and CONTINUE in text mode. Never abort coaching over canvas trouble.

(The SWE_INTERVIEW_COACH_CONFIG_DIR/_PORT env vars are test-only knobs; this command's contract is the default path ~/.config/swe-interview-coach/canvas.json and port 9999.)

Step 1 — Resolve the design

Take $ARGUMENTS as design.

  • If empty: glob ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/library/sysdesign/*.md, strip the path and .md extension to get the available ids, list them, and ask the user to pick one.
  • If ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/library/sysdesign/<design>.md exists: Read it; hold its frontmatter and sections — they drive the whole walkthrough.
  • If it does not exist: present a numbered choice and wait for the answer:

Design "" not in library. (1) on-demand walkthrough (not canonical — relies on general knowledge; I'll say so) (2) cancel.

Step 2 — Set expectations

  • Canvas mode: tell the user you'll explain in chat AND build the diagram live in their open tab at http://localhost:9999. If the tab looks blank, the Excalidraw library may still be loading from the CDN (first load needs internet) — coaching continues either way.
  • Text mode: tell the user they get a structured markdown walkthrough instead.

Step 3 — Walkthrough (canvas mode)

Follow the library entry's section order: Requirements → Capacity estimation → High-level architecture → API design → Storage choices → Key components & deep dives → Common tradeoffs → Curveballs interviewers throw. (On-demand: follow the same eight sections from general knowledge, and restate up front that this is not a canonical entry.)

For each section:

a. Explain in chat — paraphrase the entry in your own voice; never dump it verbatim. b. Read the scene file first and fold in any edits the user made in their tab (they sync silently within ~300 ms), then Write the merged cumulative scene — never Write from memory alone. Update the canvas by Writing the FULL cumulative scene to ~/.config/swe-interview-coach/canvas.json as {"elements":[…],"appState":{"viewBackgroundColor":"#ffffff"}}. The browser tab applies it within ~500 ms.

Read the full file on GitHub · 82 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. 5d ago First seen · 82 lines · 73 tokens per session scan A 5c9ae33bde01

Subscribe to this mod's changes

sysdesign-explain is a command published in the GitHub repository kirilxd/swe-interview-coach (79 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 73 tokens to every session and 1,249 once invoked, about $0.0004 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.