APM is a package manager for AI-agent configuration, using a manifest to declare reusable instructions, skills, prompts, agents, hooks, plugins, and MCP components. Development teams use it to reproduce agent setups across projects and control their dependencies through policies and lockfiles, while the catalogue contains many of these agent components.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/apm. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/apm/main/.agents/skills/python-architecture/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/apmWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/apm/python-architecture)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/apm/python-architecture"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/microsoft/apm/python-architecture/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/apm/python-architecture"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/microsoft/apm/python-architecture.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector pass
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 | $0.00037 | $0.00292 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00015 | $0.00117 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00007 | $0.00058 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00029 |
Grade A, and why
python-architecture 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 1mo 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.
What it actually says
Python Architecture Skill
When to activate
- Creating new Python modules or packages under
src/apm_cli/ - Refactoring class hierarchies or introducing base classes
- Changes that touch 3+ files with shared logic patterns
- Introducing new design patterns (Strategy, Observer, etc.)
- Cross-cutting concerns (logging, auth, error handling)
- Performance-sensitive paths (parallel downloads, large manifests)
Key rules
- Follow existing patterns (BaseIntegrator, CommandLogger, AuthResolver) before inventing new ones
- Prefer composition over deep inheritance
- Push shared logic into base classes, not duplicated across siblings
- One canonical owner per decision: route through the existing authority (target_catalog, AuthResolver/host_providers, runtime registry, CommandLogger, CompiledOutputWriter, deployment_ledger, install-outcome, neutral hook IR, BaseIntegrator); extend it, never fork it. Full rule:
.apm/instructions/architecture.instructions.md - Lock every centralization with a dual guardrail: a regression test plus a static check in
scripts/lint-architecture-boundaries.sh
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 28 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A f06e50b8c40d
python-architecture is a skill published in the GitHub repository microsoft/apm (4,133 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 292 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 2026-08-30.
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