What is discovery-methodology?

A structured process for discovering and recording the architecture of a new software project. It guides a developer from an initial idea through requirements and design decisions.

Use it to explore a new project, ask the right requirements questions, define measurable needs, and document architectural choices before implementation.

It prevents choosing technologies before understanding the problem and turns vague needs into specific, reviewable requirements. It also keeps architecture discussions focused and organized.

discovery-methodology — Skill for Claude Code by HartBrook/trailhead

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 HartBrook/trailhead --skill discovery-methodology

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/HartBrook/trailhead

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install trailhead, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 2 skills.

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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hartbrook/trailhead/discovery-methodology/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/hartbrook/trailhead/discovery-methodology)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/hartbrook/trailhead/discovery-methodology"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hartbrook/trailhead/discovery-methodology/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/hartbrook/trailhead/discovery-methodology"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hartbrook/trailhead/discovery-methodology.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 25 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 917 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.

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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00025	$0.00917
Opus 5.5	$0.00010	$0.00367
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00005	$0.00183
Haiku 4.5	$0.00003	$0.00092

Measured 2mo ago against content hash c0ab5ba9d0b3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

discovery-methodology 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 2mo 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.

src/skills/discovery-methodology/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.

Architecture Discovery Methodology

A structured process for turning "I need to build X" into a documented set of architectural decisions. The value is in the questions, not the answers — the developer has domain expertise, this process provides process expertise.

The 7 Principles

Problem before solution — Requirements before technology. Always. If a developer leads with a technology preference, acknowledge it, park it, and redirect to requirements first.
One question at a time — Use AskUserQuestion for structured choices (e.g., selecting from consistency models). Use open-ended prose for exploratory topics (e.g., "Walk me through what happens when a user first signs up").
Drive, don't follow — The process owns the conversation structure. Announce the current phase, explain why it matters, guide the developer through it. They provide answers; you provide the framework.
Challenge vague answers — "Fast" is not a requirement. "p95 under 200ms for search queries" is. Push for specifics: which dimension, what numbers would be uncomfortable.
Respect expertise — Collaborative senior architect, not interviewer. If the developer clearly has deep knowledge, skip the basics. If they are junior, provide context on why each question matters.
Ground in reality — Use WebSearch for technology comparisons. Don't rely on training data for version numbers, pricing, ecosystem status, or maturity.
Make it resumable — Update discovery-state.md after each phase so sessions can be interrupted and continued.

The 6 Phases

Phase 1: Problem Framing

Extract the problem at the problem level, not the solution level. Output: problem statement (2-3 sentences), measurable success criteria.

Phase 2: Functional Requirements

Map capabilities, workflows, data, and interactions. Surface implicit requirements by asking about edge cases, failure scenarios, and integration points.

Phase 3: Non-Functional Requirements

Structured walkthrough of 5 dimensions:

Scale & Performance — users, latency, throughput, burst patterns
Availability & Reliability — downtime cost, uptime target, RPO/RTO, graceful degradation
Data & Consistency — consistency model, retention, regulatory, auditability
Security & Compliance — auth model, sensitive data, regulatory requirements
Team & Operational — team size, known tech, deployment, on-call maturity, budget

Read the full file on GitHub · 66 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.

2mo ago First seen · 66 lines · 25 tokens per session scan A c0ab5ba9d0b3

Subscribe to this mod's changes

discovery-methodology is a skill published in the GitHub repository HartBrook/trailhead (6 stars, last pushed 8mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 25 tokens to every session and 917 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.

Planning

discovery-methodology next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
discovery-methodologyHartBrook/trailhead	Skill	6	8mo ago	MIT	A	25	Claude Code
imagegenopenai/codex	Skill	135k	today	Apache-2.0	A	113	Codex
playwright-climicrosoft/playwright	Skill	100k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	19	Claude Code
browser-automationopenclaw/openclaw	Skill	394k	today	MIT	A	36	Claude Code
local-ai-agentsmicrosoft/ai-agents-for-beginners	Skill	79k	4d ago	MIT	A	200	Claude Code, Codex
systematic-debuggingobra/superpowers	Skill	316k	8d ago	MIT	A	21	Claude Code
next-cache-components-adoptionvercel/next.js	Skill	143k	today	MIT	A	95	Claude Code