architecture

architecture is a skill for Claude Code from anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins. It costs 52 tokens per session (553 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A guide for recording or reviewing an architecture decision: a documented choice about how a software system should be built. It compares options, trade-offs, and consequences.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to compare technologies such as Kafka and SQS, review a system design, or plan a new component from its requirements and constraints.
Why use it?
It gives a team a shared explanation for an important technical choice instead of leaving the reasoning in scattered conversations. It also makes design proposals easier to evaluate.

Skill for Claude Code ✓ vendor

Written for Claude Code: argument-hint in frontmatter.

Needs its repository: it reads a path above its own folder, which exists only inside the repository. The line is If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see [CONNECTORS.md](../../CONNECTORS.md)..

Part of the engineering plugin — 10 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to compare technologies such as Kafka and SQS, review a system design, or plan a new component from its requirements and constraints.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
About the project

Knowledge Work Plugins is an open-source collection of Claude extensions organized around roles such as productivity, sales, and customer support. Each plugin combines role-specific guidance, connectors, commands, and sub-agents so knowledge workers can use Claude with their team’s tools and processes. The catalogue entries are examples of, or workflows from, this plugin collection.

anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins · 30,179 stars · on GitHub

Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/architecture

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install engineering, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 10 skills.

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 architecture

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/architecture/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/architecture)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/architecture"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/architecture/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for architecture

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/architecture"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/architecture.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 553 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • Socket pass 14 Sept 2026
  • Snyk pass 14 Sept 2026
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 5.1 $0.00052 $0.00553
Opus 5.5 $0.00021 $0.00221
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00010 $0.00111
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00055

Measured 1mo ago against content hash de7db3170a3a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architecture 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 1mo 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

Copies of this mod

6 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

engineering/skills/architecture/SKILL.md · 86 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 86 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/architecture

If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see CONNECTORS.md.

Create an Architecture Decision Record (ADR) or evaluate a system design.

Usage

/architecture $ARGUMENTS

Modes

Create an ADR: "Should we use Kafka or SQS for our event bus?" Evaluate a design: "Review this microservices proposal" System design: "Design the notification system for our app"

See the system-design skill for detailed frameworks on requirements gathering, scalability analysis, and trade-off evaluation.

Output — ADR Format

# ADR-[number]: [Title]

**Status:** Proposed | Accepted | Deprecated | Superseded
**Date:** [Date]
**Deciders:** [Who needs to sign off]

## Context
[What is the situation? What forces are at play?]

## Decision
[What is the change we're proposing?]

## Options Considered

### Option A: [Name]
| Dimension | Assessment |
|-----------|------------|
| Complexity | [Low/Med/High] |
| Cost | [Assessment] |
| Scalability | [Assessment] |
| Team familiarity | [Assessment] |

**Pros:** [List]
**Cons:** [List]

### Option B: [Name]
[Same format]

## Trade-off Analysis
[Key trade-offs between options with clear reasoning]

## Consequences
- [What becomes easier]
- [What becomes harder]
- [What we'll need to revisit]

## Action Items
1. [ ] [Implementation step]
2. [ ] [Follow-up]

If Connectors Available

If ~~knowledge base is connected:

  • Search for prior ADRs and design docs
  • Find relevant technical context

If ~~project tracker is connected:

  • Link to related epics and tickets
  • Create implementation tasks

Tips

  1. State constraints upfront — "We need to ship in 2 weeks" or "Must handle 10K rps" shapes the answer.
  2. Name your options — Even if you're leaning one way, I'll give a more balanced analysis with explicit alternatives.
  3. Include non-functional requirements — Latency, cost, team expertise, and maintenance burden matter as much as features.

Read the full file on GitHub · 86 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. 1mo ago First seen · 86 lines · 52 tokens per session scan A de7db3170a3a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture is a skill published in the GitHub repository anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins (30,179 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 553 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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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