explain

explain is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from 0xDarkMatter/claude-mods. It costs 49 tokens per session (2,560 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A deep code-explanation tool for understanding files, functions, directories, and technical concepts. It can examine structure, relationships, dependencies, performance, architecture, and data flow, with different explanation depths.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to explain a file, function, class, directory, or architecture, and to trace data flow, dependencies, API behavior, or performance concerns.
Why use it?
It helps when code is difficult to understand or when a quick description is not enough to show how the pieces work together.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the claude-mods plugin — 103 skills, 3 commands, 3 agents, 4 hooks 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 skills/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/explain
Any agent
npx skills add 0xDarkMatter/claude-mods --skill explain
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/0xDarkMatter/claude-mods

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install claude-mods, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 103 skills, 3 commands, 3 agents, 4 hooks.

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 explain

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/explain.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/explain)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/explain"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/explain.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 49 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,560 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 $0.00049 $0.02560
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.01280
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00512
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00256

Measured 5d ago against content hash 16a27a094221, 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 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.

skills/explain/SKILL.md · 343 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 343 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Explain - Deep Code Explanation

Get a comprehensive explanation of code, files, directories, or architectural concepts. Automatically dispatches a general-purpose agent preloaded with the most relevant -ops skill and uses modern CLI tools for analysis.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS

  • <target> - File path, function name, class name, directory, or concept
  • --depth <shallow|normal|deep|trace> - Level of detail (default: normal)
  • --focus <arch|flow|deps|api|perf> - Specific focus area

Architecture

/explain <target> [--depth] [--focus]
    |
    +-> Step 1: Detect & Classify Target
    |     +- File exists? -> Read it
    |     +- Function/class? -> ast-grep to find definition
    |     +- Directory? -> tokei for overview
    |     +- Concept? -> rg search codebase
    |
    +-> Step 2: Gather Context (parallel)
    |     +- structural-search skill -> find usages
    |     +- code-stats skill -> assess scope
    |     +- Find related: tests, types, docs
    |     +- Load: AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md conventions
    |
    +-> Step 3: Route to Explainer (general-purpose + skill preload)
    |     +- .ts/.tsx -> general-purpose, preload typescript-ops or react-ops
    |     +- .py -> general-purpose, preload python-* skill by topic
    |     +- .vue -> general-purpose, preload vue-ops
    |     +- .sql/migrations -> general-purpose, preload postgres-ops
    |     +- agents/skills/commands -> general-purpose, preload claude-code-ops
    |     +- Default -> general-purpose
    |     +- All explainers preload: debug-ops (systematic analysis)
    |
    +-> Step 4: Generate Explanation
    |     +- Structured markdown with sections
    |     +- Mermaid diagrams (flowchart/sequence/class)
    |     +- Related code paths as file:line refs
    |     +- Design decisions and rationale
    |
    +-> Step 5: Integrate
          +- Offer to save to ARCHITECTURE.md (if significant)
          +- Link to /save if working on related task

Execution Steps

Step 1: Detect Target Type

Read the full file on GitHub · 343 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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 · 343 lines · 49 tokens per session scan A 16a27a094221

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explain is a skill published in the GitHub repository 0xDarkMatter/claude-mods (32 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 49 tokens to every session and 2,560 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.

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