architectural-proposals

A guide for writing architecture proposals: documents that explain major software structure changes before implementation begins.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to prepare proposals for architecture changes, product shifts that need new foundations, changes affecting several milestones, or updates to external dependencies.
Why use it?
It helps teams agree on the problem, proposed design, risks, scope, and effect on existing work before spending time coding.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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/alonf/mcppythondemo/architectural-proposals
Any agent
npx skills add alonf/MCPPythonDemo --skill architectural-proposals
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alonf/MCPPythonDemo

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 18 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,436 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00018 $0.01436
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00718
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00287
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00144

Measured 2d ago against content hash a2a4bb4caf36, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architectural-proposals 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to architectural-proposals — 302 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.squad/templates/skills/architectural-proposals/SKILL.md · 152 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 152 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Context

Proposals create alignment before code is written. Cheaper to change a doc than refactor code. Use this pattern when:

  • Architecture shifts invalidate existing assumptions
  • Product direction changes require new foundation
  • Multiple waves/milestones will be affected by a decision
  • External dependencies (Copilot CLI, SDK APIs) change

Patterns

Proposal Structure (docs/proposals/)

Required sections:

  1. Problem Statement — Why current state is broken (specific, measurable evidence)
  2. Proposed Architecture — Solution with technical specifics (not hand-waving)
  3. What Changes — Impact on existing work (waves, milestones, modules)
  4. What Stays the Same — Preserve existing functionality (no regression)
  5. Key Decisions Needed — Explicit choices with recommendations
  6. Risks and Mitigations — Likelihood + impact + mitigation strategy
  7. Scope — What's in v1, what's deferred (timeline clarity)

Optional sections:

  • Implementation Plan (high-level milestones)
  • Success Criteria (measurable outcomes)
  • Open Questions (unresolved items)
  • Appendix (prior art, alternatives considered)

Tone Ceiling Enforcement

Always:

  • Cite specific evidence (user reports, performance data, failure modes)
  • Justify recommendations with technical rationale
  • Acknowledge trade-offs (no perfect solutions)
  • Be specific about APIs, libraries, file paths

Never:

  • Hype ("revolutionary", "game-changing")
  • Hand-waving ("we'll figure it out later")
  • Unsubstantiated claims ("users will love this")
  • Vague timelines ("soon", "eventually")

Wave Restructuring Pattern

When a proposal invalidates existing wave structure:

  1. Acknowledge the shift: "This becomes Wave 0 (Foundation)"
  2. Cascade impacts: Adjust downstream waves (Wave 1, Wave 2, Wave 3)
  3. Preserve non-blocking work: Identify what can proceed in parallel
  4. Update dependencies: Document new blocking relationships

Read the full file on GitHub · 152 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 · 152 lines · 18 tokens per session scan A a2a4bb4caf36

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architectural-proposals is a skill published in the GitHub repository alonf/MCPPythonDemo (0 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 18 tokens to every session and 1,436 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to architectural-proposals, differing in 302 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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