architecture-decision-records

architecture-decision-records is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from jxoesneon/Ciel. It costs 14 tokens per session (584 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A structured record for documenting important software architecture decisions. It captures the problem, chosen approach, rejected alternatives, and consequences over time.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps create, index, and maintain decision records, including the context, alternatives, trade-offs, and later changes to each decision.
Why use it?
It preserves the reasoning behind major technical choices so future contributors can understand why the system was built that way.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Good fit It helps create, index, and maintain decision records, including the context, alternatives, trade-offs, and later changes to each decision.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/jxoesneon/ciel/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 jxoesneon/Ciel --skill architecture-decision-records
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jxoesneon/Ciel

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/jxoesneon/ciel/architecture-decision-records/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/jxoesneon/ciel/architecture-decision-records)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jxoesneon/ciel/architecture-decision-records"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jxoesneon/ciel/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/jxoesneon/ciel/architecture-decision-records"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jxoesneon/ciel/architecture-decision-records.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 14 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 584 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 $0.00014 $0.00584
Opus 5 $0.00007 $0.00292
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00117
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00058

Measured 7d ago against content hash 6747153190d0, 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 7d 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/architecture-decision-records/SKILL.md · 74 lines

What it actually says

CIEL ADAPTATION: Architecture Decision Records (ADR)

This skill provides CIEL's framework for capturing the "Why" behind architectural choices. It ensures that every major decision is documented, reasoned, and auditable.

Integration Context

Adapted from ~/.agents/skills/architecture-decision-records/. This skill serves as the "Journal of Evolution" for CIEL, providing the historical context needed for self-improvement and future deliberations.

The ADR Format

Every ADR must follow the standardized CIEL schema:

  1. Context: What problem are we solving? What are the constraints?
  2. Decision: The specific choice being made (Present Tense).
  3. Alternatives: What was rejected and why?
  4. Consequences: What becomes easier? What becomes harder?
  5. Council Alignment: Record the Council of Five lens-specific votes.

Orchestration Logic

1. Decision Detection

The orchestration skill must trigger an ADR draft whenever the Council of Five reaches a significant verdict.

2. Council Persistence

Every approved ADR must be indexed in MemPalace as a high-signal "Decision" node, enabling CIEL to answer "Why did we choose X?" across sessions.

3. Lifecycle Management

Use the proposed -> accepted -> [deprecated | superseded] lifecycle. When a new ADR supersedes an old one, the Knowledge Graph in MemPalace must be updated with an invalidates relationship.

4. Verification

An ADR is "finalized" when:

  • It is approved by the user.
  • It is recorded in docs/adr/.
  • The index.json (or ADR README) is updated.
  • It is mined into MemPalace.

Original Documentation preserved at source.

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. 7d ago First seen · 74 lines · 14 tokens per session scan A 6747153190d0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture-decision-records is a skill published in the GitHub repository jxoesneon/Ciel (1 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 14 tokens to every session and 584 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 2026-09-03.

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