bradygaster/squad is a tool that creates a human-directed team of AI development agents inside a project repository through GitHub Copilot. Developers use it to delegate work among persistent specialists such as frontend, backend, testing, and lead agents while retaining responsibility for decisions and review. The catalogue entries are the skills, agents, and instructions that define and coordinate those team members.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to bradygaster/squad. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bradygaster/squad/dev/.copilot/skills/architectural-review/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bradygaster/squadWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/bradygaster/squad/architectural-review)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/bradygaster/squad/architectural-review"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/bradygaster/squad/architectural-review.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector pass
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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00024 | $0.02077 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00012 | $0.01038 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00005 | $0.00415 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00208 |
Grade A, and why
architectural-review scanned grade A with 1 finding 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 8d 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.
Runs shell commandslowCapability
Expected in a hook, worth knowing in a rule or an instructions file.
The CLI has **protected bootstrap files** that must use ONLY Node.js built-in modules (`node:fs`, `node:path`, `node:child_process`, `node:util`). These files run before the SDK is loaded. How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 201 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Context
When reviewing a PR that touches core architecture, the reviewer must verify that structural invariants are preserved. This skill covers reviewing existing PRs for architectural quality — not writing proposals (see architectural-proposals/SKILL.md for that).
Use this skill when a PR includes any of:
- New modules, packages, or directories
- Dependency changes (
package.json,importadditions across package boundaries) - API surface changes (new or modified exports from
index.tsbarrel files) - Cross-package imports (anything crossing the SDK/CLI boundary)
- New abstractions (interfaces, base classes, registries, factories)
- Sweeping refactors (file renames, pattern migrations, bulk conversions)
Patterns
1. Module Boundary Enforcement
The Squad codebase has two core packages with a strict dependency direction:
squad-cli → depends on → squad-sdk
squad-sdk → NEVER depends on → squad-cli
Check every new import statement in the PR:
- CLI files may import from SDK (
@bradygaster/squad-sdk) - SDK files must NEVER import from CLI
- If a PR adds an SDK import that pulls in CLI code, reject it
2. Zero-Dependency Bootstrap Contract
The CLI has protected bootstrap files that must use ONLY Node.js built-in modules (node:fs, node:path, node:child_process, node:util). These files run before the SDK is loaded.
Protected files (authoritative list from copilot-instructions.md):
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
packages/squad-cli/src/cli/core/detect-squad-dir.ts |
Finds .squad/ at startup |
packages/squad-cli/src/cli/core/errors.ts |
Error classes (SquadError, fatal()) |
packages/squad-cli/src/cli/core/gh-cli.ts |
GitHub CLI wrapper |
packages/squad-cli/src/cli/core/output.ts |
Color/emoji console output |
packages/squad-cli/src/cli/core/history-split.ts |
Portable knowledge separator |
Review checklist for bootstrap files:
- ❌ No new
importorrequireof anything outsidenode:* - ❌ No conversion to
FSStorageProvider,StorageProvider, or SDK abstractions - ✅ Look for
— zero dependenciesmarkers in file headers - ✅ If the PR adds a new bootstrap utility, it must be added to this table and have a zero-dependency regression test
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.
- 8d ago First seen · 201 lines · 24 tokens per session scan A 645dd9d1e283
architectural-review is a skill published in the GitHub repository bradygaster/squad (3,160 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 24 tokens to every session and 2,077 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (runs shell commands). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
Other skills, from other repositories
ralphctl-code-review-and-quality
Multi-phase code-quality skill — primary frame for the evaluator role in Execute, the architecture axis in Plan, and correctness/readability in Refine. Multi-axis code review with severity vocabulary. Use when you are the evaluator assessing a generator's output, and when reviewing any change before signalling…
dos-verify-done-claims
Before accepting an agent's 'done / shipped / fixed' claim, verify it against ground truth (git ancestry + the commit's own diff) using the DOS kernel's dos verify and dos commit-audit — never the agent's own narration.
ponytail-review
Code review focused exclusively on over-engineering. Finds what to delete: reinvented standard library, unneeded dependencies, speculative abstractions, dead flexibility. One line per finding: location, what to cut, what replaces it. Use when the user says "review for over-engineering", "what can we delete", "is this…
ponytail-audit
Whole-repo audit for over-engineering. Like ponytail-review, but scans the entire codebase instead of a diff: a ranked list of what to delete, simplify, or replace with stdlib/native equivalents. Use when the user says "audit this codebase", "audit for over-engineering", "what can I delete from this repo", "find…
sdd-tasks
Break an SDD change into implementation tasks. Trigger: orchestrator launches task planning for a change.
sdd-research
Trigger: SDD research, external evidence, source-backed research. Produce auditable evidence for a selected research lane.