explain

A code-explanation guide that traces a file, function, class, or feature through a codebase.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when onboarding to a project, investigating a feature, or understanding how a particular piece of code works.
Why use it?
It turns unfamiliar code into a clear description of its purpose, relationships, flow, and important edge cases.

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/flexonze/claude-init/explain
Any agent
npx skills add Flexonze/claude-init --skill explain
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Flexonze/claude-init

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 13 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 281 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 $0.00013 $0.00281
Opus 5 $0.00006 $0.00140
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00056
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00028

Measured 2d ago against content hash 8b81a3debe67, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

explain 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.

.claude/skills/explain/SKILL.md · 40 lines

What it actually says

Explain

Provide a clear explanation of how something in the codebase works.

Instructions

  1. Identify what to explain: Use $ARGUMENTS to determine the target

    • File path → explain that file's purpose and how it works
    • Function/class name → find and explain that specific code
    • Feature name → trace through the codebase to explain the feature end-to-end
  2. Gather context

    • Read the relevant code
    • Identify dependencies and relationships
    • Look at how it's used (callers, imports)
    • Check for related tests that show intended behavior
  3. Explain clearly

    • Start with a high-level summary (1-2 sentences)
    • Break down the key components
    • Explain the flow/logic step by step
    • Note any important patterns or design decisions
    • Mention edge cases or gotchas if relevant

Guidelines

  • Adjust depth based on complexity—simple code needs brief explanations
  • Use concrete examples from the code when helpful
  • Reference specific line numbers for key logic
  • If the target is ambiguous, ask for clarification
  • Avoid restating code literally; explain the why and how
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 · 40 lines · 13 tokens per session scan A 8b81a3debe67

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explain is a skill published in the GitHub repository Flexonze/claude-init (10 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 13 tokens to every session and 281 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 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

etsy-category-listing

Etsy category page scraper: given an Etsy category URL (e.g. https://www.etsy.com/c/jewelry) and optional page number, returns paginated product listings with listingId, shopId, title, url, image, salePrice, originalPrice, currency, rating, reviewCount, shopName, isAd, freeShipping, badge from category and subcategory…

browser-act/skills · 209 tokens

agent-memory

../../../engineering/agent-memory/skills/agent-memory/SKILL.md.

alirezarezvani/claude-skills · 0 tokens

agile-product-owner

../../../product-team/agile-product-owner/skills/agile-product-owner/SKILL.md.

alirezarezvani/claude-skills · 0 tokens

amazon-reviews-api-skill

This skill helps users automatically extract Amazon product reviews via the Amazon Reviews API. Agent should proactively apply this skill when users express needs like getting reviews for Amazon product with ASIN B07TS6R1SF, analyzing customer feedback for a specific Amazon item, getting ratings and comments for a…

browser-act/skills · 124 tokens

amazon-competitor-analyzer

Scrapes Amazon product data from ASINs using browseract.com automation API and performs surgical competitive analysis. Compares specifications, pricing, review quality, and visual strategies to identify competitor moats and vulnerabilities.

browser-act/skills · 48 tokens

audit-reproducibility

Enforce the replication-protocol.md rule by cross-checking numeric claims in a manuscript against the actual R / Stata / Python outputs. Report PASS/FAIL per claim against tolerance thresholds. Use before submission and before releasing a replication package.

pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow · 54 tokens