explore

explore is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from miltonian/cartographer. It costs 53 tokens per session (617 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guided method for exploring a software project by tracing what it does from start to finish and organizing findings by concern.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to map project behavior, follow important flows, identify boundaries such as authentication or payments, and summarize how the system works.
Why use it?
It helps you understand unfamiliar code without relying only on its file layout. It also checks that the exploration has enough depth and coverage.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the cartographer plugin — 5 skills, 1 command, 1 agent, 1 hook, 1 MCP server shipped together

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/miltonian/cartographer/explore
Any agent
npx skills add miltonian/cartographer --skill explore
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/miltonian/cartographer

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install cartographer, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 5 skills, 1 command, 1 agent, 1 hook, 1 MCP server.

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 explore

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/miltonian/cartographer/explore.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/miltonian/cartographer/explore)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/miltonian/cartographer/explore"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/miltonian/cartographer/explore.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 53 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 617 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 $0.00053 $0.00617
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.00309
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00123
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00062

Measured 3d ago against content hash 1e3dca2dcfbe, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

explore 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 3d 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.

plugin/skills/explore/SKILL.md · 68 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 68 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Codebase Exploration

Verify tools work: call cartographer_get_summary. If it fails, stop and tell the user the Cartographer MCP tools are not connected.

Set the project root: cartographer_set_project. Save a snapshot: cartographer_snapshot with label "pre-exploration".

Checklist

Copy this checklist. Track progress. Do not skip items.

Exploration Progress:
- [ ] Orient: read project, understand what it does
- [ ] Behaviors: trace key behaviors end-to-end as slices (as many as the system warrants)
- [ ] Boundaries: cluster entities by concern, record boundaries
- [ ] Depth: create sub-boundaries (check_depth must pass)
- [ ] Perspectives: create at least one focused perspective
- [ ] Synthesis: report findings to user

How to Explore

Behaviors first. Identify what the system DOES, not what files it has. Trace each behavior from entry point to completion. Record entities as encountered: actors, capabilities, state, side effects, invariants, failure points. Record each path as a behavior slice.

Boundaries emerge from behaviors. After tracing flows, cluster entities that participate in the same behaviors. Name by concern ("authentication", "payment processing"), NEVER by directory ("src", "lib", "components").

Depth is mandatory. Every boundary with more than 3 entities must have sub-boundaries. Read the source for the key classes/functions inside each boundary. Create a child boundary. Record its internal capabilities, state, invariants as children.

Perspectives for navigation. Create at least one perspective for the most important concern. If cartographer_create_perspective is unavailable, skip gracefully — sub-boundaries and slices provide depth regardless.

Before Finishing

Call cartographer_check_depth. Fix every issue it reports. Call it again. Repeat until passed: true. Do NOT report to the user until it passes.

Bad exploration (avoid)

  • 50 entities, all flat, no sub-boundaries, no slices — a parts list
  • Boundaries named "Service", "UI", "Plugin" — directory mirrors
  • Descriptions like "Express middleware handler" — engineer jargon
  • No behavior flows — structure without stories

Read the full file on GitHub · 68 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. 3d ago First seen · 68 lines · 53 tokens per session scan A 1e3dca2dcfbe

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explore is a skill published in the GitHub repository miltonian/cartographer (1 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 53 tokens to every session and 617 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-31.

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