design-documentation

design-documentation is a skill for Claude Code from jasonkneen/kiro. It costs 31 tokens per session (2,294 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A method for turning approved requirements into a technical design before implementation begins. It documents the system structure, parts, data, connections, error handling, and testing approach.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan new features, integrations, refactors, or systems that multiple developers will build or maintain.
Why use it?
It gives developers a shared plan for complex work and records important design decisions before code is written.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: mentions Claude Code.

Part of the kiro plugin — 8 skills, 2 commands shipped together

Good fit Use it to plan new features, integrations, refactors, or systems that multiple developers will build or maintain.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/jasonkneen/kiro/design-documentation
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 jasonkneen/kiro --skill design-documentation
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jasonkneen/kiro

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install kiro, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 8 skills, 2 commands.

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-documentation

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jasonkneen/kiro/design-documentation.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/jasonkneen/kiro/design-documentation)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jasonkneen/kiro/design-documentation"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jasonkneen/kiro/design-documentation.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 31 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,294 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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00031 $0.02294
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.01147
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00459
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00229

Measured 8d ago against content hash 32382118cf7f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

design-documentation 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 8d 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-documentation/SKILL.md · 415 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 415 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Design Documentation

Create technical blueprints that bridge requirements and implementation. This skill teaches how to document architecture decisions, component design, and system interactions.

When to Use This Skill

Use design documentation when:

  • Requirements phase is complete and approved
  • You need to plan technical implementation
  • Multiple developers will work on the feature
  • Architecture decisions need documentation
  • The feature involves complex integrations

Design Document Structure

Standard Template

# Design Document: [Feature Name]

## Overview
[High-level summary of the feature and approach]

## Architecture
[System architecture and component overview]

## Components and Interfaces
[Detailed component descriptions and interactions]

## Data Models
[Data structures and relationships]

## Error Handling
[Error scenarios and response strategies]

## Testing Strategy
[Testing approach and quality assurance]

Step-by-Step Process

Step 1: Requirements Analysis

Before designing, ensure you understand:

  • All functional requirements
  • Non-functional requirements (performance, security, scalability)
  • Constraints (technology stack, timeline, resources)
  • Integration points with existing systems

Analysis Questions:

  • What does the system need to do?
  • What are the performance expectations?
  • What existing code/systems does this touch?
  • What are the security requirements?
  • What could go wrong?

Step 2: Research and Context Building

Identify areas needing research:

  • Technology choices and alternatives
  • Third-party integrations and APIs
  • Best practices for similar systems
  • Security and compliance considerations

Research Documentation:

## Research Findings

### [Topic]
**Sources:** [Links/references]
**Key Insights:**
- [Finding 1]
- [Finding 2]
**Impact on Design:** [How this affects our approach]

Step 3: Define System Architecture

Document the high-level structure:

## Architecture

### System Overview
[How the overall system works]

### Component Architecture
[Major components and their responsibilities]

### Data Flow
[How information moves through the system]

### Technology Decisions
[Key technology choices and rationale]

Read the full file on GitHub · 415 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. 8d ago First seen · 415 lines · 31 tokens per session scan A 32382118cf7f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

design-documentation is a skill published in the GitHub repository jasonkneen/kiro (746 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 31 tokens to every session and 2,294 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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