explain-code

A command that gives a detailed explanation of how source code works, including its flow, algorithms, design patterns, and possible problems. It can tailor the explanation to someone new to programming.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to understand functions and algorithms, trace asynchronous code, learn why a design pattern is present, inspect performance, or review security issues.
Why use it?
It turns unfamiliar or complicated code into a readable walkthrough and can reveal performance or security concerns that are easy to miss when reading it alone.

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/spideynolove/claude-dotfiles/explain-code
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/spideynolove/claude-dotfiles

Made for: Claude Code.

Per session 12 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 399 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 $0.00012 $0.00399
Opus 5 $0.00006 $0.00199
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00080
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00040

Measured yesterday against content hash 35e342832eb4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

explain-code 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.

.claude-global-backup/commands/explain-code.md · 85 lines

What it actually says

Code Explain

Explains how code works in detail.

Usage

# Show a file and ask for explanation
cat <file>
"Explain how this code works"

Basic Examples

# Understand Rust ownership
cat main.rs
"Explain the ownership and lifetimes in this Rust code"

# Explain an algorithm
grep -A 50 "quicksort" sort.rs
"How does this sorting work? What's its time complexity?"

# Explain design patterns
cat factory.rs
"What design pattern is this? What are the benefits?"

Collaboration with Claude

# Beginner-friendly explanation
cat complex_function.py
"Explain this code line by line for someone new to programming"

# Performance check
cat algorithm.rs
"Find performance problems and how to fix them"

# Visual explanation
cat state_machine.js
"Show me the flow with ASCII diagrams"

# Security check
cat auth_handler.go
"What security issues do you see?"

Detailed Examples

# Complex logic breakdown
cat recursive_parser.rs
"Break down this recursive parser:
1. How does it flow?
2. What does each function do?
3. How are edge cases handled?
4. What could be better?"

# Async code explanation
cat async_handler.ts
"Explain this async code:
1. How do the Promises flow?
2. How are errors handled?
3. What runs in parallel?
4. Could this deadlock?"

# Architecture overview
ls -la src/ && cat src/main.rs src/lib.rs
"Explain how this project is structured"

What You'll Get

Not just what the code does, but also:

  • Why it's written that way
  • What benefits it provides
  • What problems might come up
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 · 85 lines · 12 tokens per session scan A 35e342832eb4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explain-code is a command published in the GitHub repository spideynolove/claude-dotfiles (2 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 12 tokens to every session and 399 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 2026-08-31.