architecture-decision-records

architecture-decision-records is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills. It costs 19 tokens per session (3,716 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A method for recording important architecture decisions in short documents called Architecture Decision Records, or ADRs. Each record explains the decision, its context, and the alternatives that were considered.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to document design choices, constraints, trade-offs, alternatives, reviews, and decisions that later become outdated or are replaced.
Why use it?
It preserves the reasoning behind a system’s design so future team members can understand why it works that way and avoid undoing decisions without the necessary context.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Good fit Use it to document design choices, constraints, trade-offs, alternatives, reviews, and decisions that later become outdated or are replaced.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/architecture-decision-records
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.

Any agent
npx skills add cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills --skill architecture-decision-records
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills

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 architecture-decision-records

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/architecture-decision-records/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/architecture-decision-records)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/architecture-decision-records"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/architecture-decision-records/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-decision-records

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/architecture-decision-records"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/architecture-decision-records.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 19 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,716 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
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 2 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Data Exfiltration · line 20
    Code or instructions that leak agent conversation context to external services, potentially exposing sensitive user interactions.
    Fix: Remove any code that sends prompts, responses, or session data externally. Preserve user privacy; never exfiltrate conversation content.
  • medium MCP Rug Pull · line 393
    npx commands without a version suffix (e.g. @1.0.0) create a rug-pull risk if the upstream server is compromised and publishes a malicious update.
    Fix: Pin the version: npx @scope/[email protected]
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 $0.00019 $0.03716
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.01858
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00743
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00372

Measured 11d ago against content hash 612665710e1b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architecture-decision-records 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 11d 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.

categories/development/architecture-decision-records/SKILL.md · 496 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 496 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Architecture Decision Records

Capture architectural decisions systematically so your team understands not just what was decided, but why — and what alternatives were considered.

Core Principles

1. Decisions Are More Important Than Diagrams

A diagram shows the current architecture. An ADR explains why it is that way. When someone asks "why did we do it this way?" the ADR is the answer.

2. Capture Context, Not Just Conclusions

Every architectural decision exists in a web of constraints, tradeoffs, and alternatives. If you only record the conclusion, future engineers will wonder if you considered the obvious alternative — and they might reverse it without understanding why the original choice was made.

3. Lightweight Is Sustainable

An ADR doesn't need to be a 10-page document. A structured 1-page record is infinitely better than nothing. If the process is heavy, people won't follow it.

4. Accept and Track Superseded Decisions

Architecture evolves. An ADR that gets superseded is a success — it means the system adapted. Old ADRs remain valuable as historical records of the team's thinking.


ADR Maturity Model

Level Capture Storage Review Enforcement
1: Tribal Decisions in Slack/meetings Nobody remembers None None
2: Documented Some decisions written down Shared drive or wiki Sporadic None
3: Systematic All significant decisions as ADRs In repository alongside code PR review requires ADR for arch changes Basic: "needs ADR" check
4: Integrated ADRs linked to implementation Searchable, indexed, cross-referenced Mandatory ADR review for arch changes Automated: lint checks for ADR format
5: Governance ADRs drive architecture reviews Catalog with status dashboard Regular architecture review board Automated compliance checks

Target: Level 3 for most teams. Level 4+ for regulated or long-lived systems.

Read the full file on GitHub · 496 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. 11d ago First seen · 496 lines · 19 tokens per session scan A 612665710e1b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture-decision-records is a skill published in the GitHub repository cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills (470 stars, last pushed 17d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 19 tokens to every session and 3,716 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.

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