improve-codebase-architecture

A guide for finding architectural improvements in a codebase. It uses the project’s domain terms and architecture decisions to identify modules that could make code easier to test and navigate.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to review a codebase, suggest refactors, consolidate related modules, create clearer seams for changing behavior, and improve testability and AI-assisted navigation.
Why use it?
It helps reveal duplicated complexity, tightly connected modules, and interfaces that provide little benefit. The recommendations are based on how much useful work a module hides behind its interface.

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/chama-x/groundrules/improve-codebase-architecture
Any agent
npx skills add chama-x/GroundRules --skill improve-codebase-architecture
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/chama-x/GroundRules

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 68 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 722 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 $0.00068 $0.00722
Opus 5 $0.00034 $0.00361
Sonnet 5 $0.00014 $0.00144
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00072

Measured 2d ago against content hash 8f4a0a71958d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

improve-codebase-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 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.

.agents/archive/v3/skill_odoo-discipline/skills/improve-codebase-architecture/SKILL.md · 66 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 66 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Improve Codebase Architecture

Surface architectural friction and propose deepening opportunities: refactors that turn shallow modules into deep ones. The aim is testability and AI-navigability.

Glossary

Use these terms exactly in every suggestion. Full definitions are in LANGUAGE.md.

  • Module: anything with an interface and an implementation.
  • Interface: everything a caller must know to use the module correctly.
  • Implementation: the code inside.
  • Depth: leverage at the interface. Deep means high leverage; shallow means the interface is nearly as complex as the implementation.
  • Seam: where an interface lives; a place behavior can be altered without editing in place.
  • Adapter: a concrete thing satisfying an interface at a seam.
  • Leverage: what callers get from depth.
  • Locality: what maintainers get from depth.

Key principles:

  • Deletion test: imagine deleting the module. If complexity vanishes, it was a pass-through. If complexity reappears across many callers, it was earning its keep.
  • The interface is the test surface.
  • One adapter means a hypothetical seam. Two adapters means a real seam.

Process

1. Explore

Read the project's domain glossary and any ADRs in the area first. Then inspect the codebase organically and note where understanding creates friction:

  • Where does understanding one concept require bouncing between many small modules?
  • Where are modules shallow?
  • Where have pure functions been extracted only for testability, while real bugs hide in how they are called?
  • Where do tightly-coupled modules leak across seams?
  • Which parts are untested, or hard to test through their current interface?

Apply the deletion test to anything suspected of being shallow.

2. Present Candidates

Present a numbered list of deepening opportunities. For each candidate include:

  • Files: which files/modules are involved.
  • Problem: why current architecture causes friction.
  • Solution: plain-English description of what would change.
  • Benefits: explain locality, leverage, and how tests would improve.

Read the full file on GitHub · 66 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. 2d ago First seen · 66 lines · 68 tokens per session scan A 8f4a0a71958d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

improve-codebase-architecture is a skill published in the GitHub repository chama-x/GroundRules (5 stars, last pushed 19d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 68 tokens to every session and 722 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 2026-08-31.

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