architect

A design-first coding workflow for sketching types, function signatures and module boundaries before implementation. The design is tested against the surrounding code and can be discarded if implementation shows that its structure is wrong.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for non-trivial features, architecture work and changes that touch multiple modules, especially when the shape of the code should be agreed before writing the implementation.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of committing early to interfaces or module boundaries that do not fit the existing system. It keeps design decisions visible while the code is being built.

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/backnotprop/pstack/architect
Any agent
npx skills add backnotprop/pstack --skill architect
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/backnotprop/pstack

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,233 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 $0.00052 $0.01233
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.00616
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00247
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00123

Measured yesterday against content hash 585d7a9e03c0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architect 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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

4 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

skills/architect/SKILL.md · 84 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 84 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Architect

Design before implementing. Sketch types, function signatures, class shapes, and module boundaries with not implemented bodies and pseudocode. Synthesize across multiple model perspectives, then fill in code against the chosen sketch. If implementation proves the sketch wrong, throw it out and redesign.

Start

Open a todolist with one entry per phase before starting. Autonomous mode without checkpoints needs the list to show phase position and keep phases from silently disappearing.

  1. Ground
  2. Sketch
  3. Agree
  4. Implement
  5. Scrap

Phase A: Ground the problem

Build a real mental model of every system the new code touches. Run the how skill over the relevant subsystems. Critique mode if existing structure is the constraint or the design must push back on it.

Naming a file isn't grounding. Produce the traced model how prescribes. If the design redefines ownership or layering, also run the why skill on the existing shape so the rationale becomes a constraint, not a guess.

Skip Phase A only when the work is genuinely greenfield with no surrounding system to integrate.

Phase B: Sketch

Run the arena skill with the design-sketch task and the Phase A grounding artifacts. Pass references/runner-prompt.md as each runner's prompt. Each candidate produces a design package shaped per references/rationale-template.md: the caller's usage written first, then the type sketch, function signatures, module map, and prose rationale derived from it.

Use your configured architect runners (defaults claude-fable-5-thinking-max, gpt-5.6-sol-max, grok-4.6-fast-xhigh, claude-opus-5-thinking-xhigh).

Design it twice. Require at least two structurally distinct candidates before synthesis, even when the first looks sufficient. This is the exhaust-the-design-space principle skill made concrete. Whole-shape alternatives, not point fixes inside one shape.

Screen every candidate against references/design-red-flags.md before synthesis. Reject or revise shallow modules, information leakage, temporal decomposition, and pass-through methods.

Read the full file on GitHub · 84 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. yesterday First seen · 84 lines · 52 tokens per session scan A 585d7a9e03c0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architect is a skill published in the GitHub repository backnotprop/pstack (165 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 1,233 once invoked, about $0.0003 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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