explain

A deprecated command for getting detailed documentation about orchestration features such as workflows, agents, syntax, and error handling.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when you need documentation for a specific orchestration topic and the older command still supports that request.
Why use it?
It provides a way to find legacy topic documentation, although the same material is now included in skills.

Command

Part of the claude-orchestration plugin — 9 skills, 10 commands, 3 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/mbruhler/claude-orchestration/explain
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mbruhler/claude-orchestration

Or install claude-orchestration, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 9 skills, 10 commands, 3 agents.

Per session 7 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,034 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 $0.00007 $0.01034
Opus 5 $0.00003 $0.00517
Sonnet 5 $0.00001 $0.00207
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00103

Measured 3d ago against content hash bc49e44aaa25, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

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 3d 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/explain.md · 136 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 136 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

⚠️ DEPRECATED: Orchestration Topic Documentation

This command is deprecated. Skills now contain embedded documentation with progressive disclosure.

Migration Guide

Documentation is now integrated into skills:

  • creating-workflows skill - Workflow creation docs
  • executing-workflows skill - Execution and syntax docs
  • managing-agents skill - Agent lifecycle docs
  • designing-syntax skill - Custom syntax docs
  • debugging-workflows skill - Debugging guides

Legacy Usage (Still Works)

Provide detailed documentation on specific orchestration topics.

Arguments: {{ARGS}}

Available Topics

Core Topics (docs/topics/):

  • syntax - Complete syntax guide (operators, agents, patterns)
  • custom-syntax - Custom syntax elements and definitions

Features (docs/features/):

  • natural-language - Natural language workflow creation
  • templates - Template system and parameter substitution
  • error-handling - Error recovery strategies
  • defined-agents - Reusable agent definitions
  • temporary-agents - Inline agent definitions ($agent syntax)
  • agent-promotion - Converting temp to defined agents
  • custom-definitions - Extension system

Reference (docs/reference/):

  • syntax - Quick reference card
  • examples - Examples gallery
  • best-practices - Guidelines and patterns
  • variable-binding - Conditional variables
  • temp-agents-syntax - Temporary agent syntax reference

Handle Topic Selection

No Topic Specified

If {{ARGS}} is empty, present topic selection menu:

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [{
    question: "Which topic would you like to learn about?",
    header: "Topic",
    multiSelect: false,
    options: [
      {label: "syntax", description: "Complete syntax guide"},
      {label: "custom-syntax", description: "Custom syntax elements"},
      {label: "natural-language", description: "Natural language creation"},
      {label: "templates", description: "Template system"},
      {label: "defined-agents", description: "Reusable agents"},
      {label: "temporary-agents", description: "Inline agents ($agent)"},
      {label: "agent-promotion", description: "Temp to defined agents"},
      {label: "error-handling", description: "Error recovery"},
      {label: "examples", description: "Examples gallery"},
      {label: "best-practices", description: "Guidelines and patterns"}
    ]
  }]
})

Read the full file on GitHub · 136 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. 3d ago First seen · 136 lines · 7 tokens per session scan A bc49e44aaa25

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explain is a command published in the GitHub repository mbruhler/claude-orchestration (218 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 7 tokens to every session and 1,034 once invoked, about $0.0000 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.