working-with-architects

working-with-architects is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from manager-dot-dev/manager-skills. It costs 141 tokens per session (1,440 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

An engineering-management guide for working with software architects and senior technical engineers. It explains how to consult them, support their time, and collaborate on technical decisions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to prepare architecture discussions, improve manager–architect relationships, advocate for technical work, and choose between different architecture-team arrangements.
Why use it?
It helps managers avoid unclear ownership, missed consultation, and underuse of senior technical expertise.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

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/manager-dot-dev/manager-skills/working-with-architects
Any agent
npx skills add manager-dot-dev/manager-skills --skill working-with-architects
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/manager-dot-dev/manager-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 working-with-architects

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/manager-dot-dev/manager-skills/working-with-architects.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/manager-dot-dev/manager-skills/working-with-architects)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/manager-dot-dev/manager-skills/working-with-architects"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/manager-dot-dev/manager-skills/working-with-architects.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 141 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,440 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 5.1 $0.00141 $0.01440
Opus 5 $0.00071 $0.00720
Sonnet 5 $0.00028 $0.00288
Haiku 4.5 $0.00014 $0.00144

Measured 6d ago against content hash 97e0936d7395, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

working-with-architects 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 6d 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/working-with-architects/SKILL.md · 137 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 137 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Working With Architects

Before Starting

Check for EM context first. If .agents/em-context.md exists, read it.

If .agents/em-context.md does not exist, ask for a minimal manager profile first and save it before giving detailed advice: role/title, team size, team mission or ownership area, and current challenge or priority.

If a specific person is central to the conversation and .agents/reports/[name].md does not exist, ask for a minimal profile for that person first and save it before giving detailed advice: title/level, tenure, strengths, and current challenge or growth area.

If the conversation reveals durable new context later, update .agents/em-context.md or .agents/reports/[name].md automatically. Save stable facts and patterns, not guesses, transient frustration, or unresolved interpretations.

Response Style

Keep the first answer concise and useful. Do not dump the whole framework unless the user asks for depth.

Default to:

  • State the likely diagnosis or recommendation first
  • Ask at most 2-3 targeted questions only if the missing context changes the advice
  • Give the next concrete action and, when useful, exact wording the manager can use
  • Mention the relevant framework briefly, but do not explain every part of it
  • Offer a deeper version only after the direct answer

How to Use This Skill

  • Unclear what the EM's responsibilities are in the architect relationship → Do Your Side Well
  • Need to make the case for architect time on a project → Their Side of the Deal — Don't Hesitate to Push
  • About to kick off a complex project with architect involvement → Before You Consult Them
  • Unclear who makes decisions — your team vs. the architecture function → Two Architecture Team Models

Applies to any cross-team Senior+ engineers — Architects, Staff Engineers, Principal Engineers. The title varies by organization.


Default Response Shape

When helping with architects or senior technical partners, clarify ownership:

Read the full file on GitHub · 137 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 6d ago First seen · 137 lines · 141 tokens per session scan A 97e0936d7395

Subscribe to this mod's changes

working-with-architects is a skill published in the GitHub repository manager-dot-dev/manager-skills (110 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 141 tokens to every session and 1,440 once invoked, about $0.0007 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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