design-doc-writer

design-doc-writer is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system. It costs 23 tokens per session (494 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A method for turning an unclear technical idea into a structured document that explains the problem, proposed solution, requirements, alternatives, and risks.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for new systems, feature proposals, migrations, redesigns, and implementation-ready technical plans.
Why use it?
It prevents teams from building against different assumptions and gives reviewers and implementers a shared plan.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

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/caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system/design-doc-writer
Any agent
npx skills add caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system --skill design-doc-writer
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 design-doc-writer

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system/design-doc-writer.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system/design-doc-writer)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system/design-doc-writer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system/design-doc-writer.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 23 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 494 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 5.1 $0.00023 $0.00494
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00247
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00099
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00049

Measured 6d ago against content hash a08af2d14c39, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

design-doc-writer 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 6d 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/design-doc-writer/SKILL.md · 53 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 53 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Mission

Turn ambiguous technical intent into a clear document that supports decision-making, delivery, and risk awareness.

When to use

  • Proposing a new system or feature.
  • Documenting a migration or redesign.
  • Aligning stakeholders on a technical plan.
  • Creating an implementation-ready design.

Handoff

  • Receives from: principal-engineer (design decision) or backend-platform-engineer (implementation planning).
  • Hands off to: adr-reviewer (for formal review), architecture-challenger (for stress test), backend-platform-engineer (for implementation).

Before answering

Identify: audience (builders? reviewers? leadership?), business urgency, scope boundaries, operational constraints, rollout risk, unresolved open questions.

Document structure

1. Context        → What situation makes this necessary?
2. Problem        → What specifically are we solving? (not the solution!)
3. Goals          → What does success look like?
4. Non-goals      → What are we explicitly NOT doing?
5. Requirements   → Hard constraints (compliance, compatibility, performance)
6. Proposed solution → The design with enough detail to implement
7. Alternatives    → What else was considered and why rejected?
8. Risks          → What can go wrong? (technical, operational, delivery)
9. Rollout plan   → How will this be safely introduced?
10. Success metrics → How will we know this worked?
11. Open questions → What remains unresolved?

Quality checks

  • Can a new engineer implement this without asking the author questions?
  • Can a reviewer identify the key trade-offs in 5 minutes?
  • Does the rollout plan have concrete steps, not just "we'll deploy"?
  • Are the success metrics measurable with current tooling?
  • Is every "TODO" or "TBD" acknowledged as an open question?

Red flags

  • Solution described before problem is clearly stated.
  • Goals section lists activities ("build X") instead of outcomes ("reduce Y").
  • Alternatives section has only one real option.
  • Risks section says "low risk" without analysis.
  • No rollout section, or rollout is one sentence.

Read the full file on GitHub · 53 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. 6d ago First seen · 53 lines · 23 tokens per session scan A a08af2d14c39

Subscribe to this mod's changes

design-doc-writer is a skill published in the GitHub repository caiaffa/claude-code-ultimate-engineering-system (17 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 23 tokens to every session and 494 once invoked, about $0.0001 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.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

systematic-debugging

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes.

obra/superpowers · 21 tokens

local-ai-agents

Build local-first AI agents that run entirely on a developer workstation with Microsoft Foundry Local and Qwen function-calling models. Covers Small Language Models (SLMs), the OpenAI-compatible local endpoint, sandboxed local tools, local RAG with Chroma, local MCP servers, hybrid cloud/local routing, and the…

microsoft/ai-agents-for-beginners · 200 tokens

next-cache-components-adoption

Turn on Cache Components in a Next.js app and resolve the blocking routes it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable, adopt, or migrate to Cache Components, flip the cacheComponents flag, work through a flood of blocking-prerender / instant validation errors, run the cache-components-instant-false codemod, or…

vercel/next.js · 95 tokens

next-partial-prefetching-adoption

Turn on Partial Prefetching in a Next.js app and work through the insights it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable or adopt Partial Prefetching, flip the partialPrefetching flag, opt routes in with export const prefetch = 'partial', audit Link prefetch={true} behavior, preserve existing prefetched UI with…

vercel/next.js · 103 tokens

chronicle

Analyze Copilot session history for standup reports, usage tips, session search, and session reindexing. Use when the user asks for a standup, daily summary, usage tips, workflow recommendations, wants to search or find past sessions by keyword/file/PR, wants to reindex their session store, or asks about deleting…

microsoft/vscode · 72 tokens

imagegen

Generate or edit raster images when the task benefits from AI-created bitmap visuals such as photos, illustrations, textures, sprites, mockups, or transparent-background cutouts. Use when Codex should create a brand-new image, transform an existing image, or derive visual variants from references, and the output…

openai/codex · 113 tokens