Architecture Explainer

Architecture Explainer is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Notysoty/openagentskills. It costs 22 tokens per session (1,656 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A codebase or system overview that maps its layers, main parts, data flows, and outside services, with text diagrams showing how they connect.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for onboarding, documenting an inherited codebase, preparing an architecture review, or clarifying a system before a large refactor.
Why use it?
It helps new engineers understand an unfamiliar system without tracing every file themselves. It also gives teams a shared reference before reviews or major changes.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Which agent this was written for is unclear — built for cline. Also seen: mentions Claude Code; mentions Codex; built for cline.

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/notysoty/openagentskills/architecture-explainer
Any agent
npx skills add Notysoty/openagentskills --skill architecture-explainer
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Notysoty/openagentskills

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 Explainer

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/notysoty/openagentskills/architecture-explainer.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/notysoty/openagentskills/architecture-explainer)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/notysoty/openagentskills/architecture-explainer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/notysoty/openagentskills/architecture-explainer.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 22 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,656 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 $0.00022 $0.01656
Opus 5 $0.00011 $0.00828
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00331
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00166

Measured 5d ago against content hash 0a83677434d1, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Architecture Explainer 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 5d 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-explainer/SKILL.md · 202 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 202 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Architecture Explainer

What this skill does

This skill directs the agent to explore a codebase or system description and produce a clear, structured architecture overview. It maps out layers, major components, data flows, and external dependencies, then renders ASCII diagrams showing how the pieces connect. The result is a document a new engineer could read in 10 minutes and understand how the system works.

Use this when onboarding new team members, preparing for an architecture review, creating documentation for a system you inherited, or clarifying your own mental model before a large refactor.

How to use

Claude Code / Cline

Copy this file to .agents/skills/architecture-explainer/SKILL.md in your project root.

Then ask:

  • "Use the Architecture Explainer skill to document this entire repo."
  • "Explain the architecture of the server/ directory using the Architecture Explainer skill."
  • "I'll describe our system. Use the Architecture Explainer skill to turn it into a structured overview."

Cursor

Add the instructions below to your .cursorrules or paste them into the Cursor AI pane before asking for the architecture overview.

Codex

Provide a directory listing or paste key files and ask Codex to follow the instructions below to produce the architecture document.

The Prompt / Instructions for the Agent

When asked to explain or document an architecture, follow these steps:

Step 1 — Explore the codebase

Start by reading:

  1. The root directory listing
  2. package.json, pyproject.toml, go.mod, or the equivalent dependency manifest
  3. Entry point files (e.g., main.ts, index.ts, app.py, cmd/main.go)
  4. Top-level directory names and their index or README files if present
  5. Any existing architecture or design docs

Do not read every file. Use the directory structure and entry points to infer the layering.

Step 2 — Identify the major components

Extract:

  • Layers: presentation, business logic, data access, infrastructure
  • Services or modules: each significant unit of functionality
  • External dependencies: databases, caches, third-party APIs, message queues
  • Entry points: HTTP routes, CLI commands, event listeners, cron jobs
  • Shared utilities: auth, logging, config, error handling

Read the full file on GitHub · 202 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. 5d ago First seen · 202 lines · 22 tokens per session scan A 0a83677434d1

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Architecture Explainer is a skill published in the GitHub repository Notysoty/openagentskills (9 stars, last pushed 22d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 22 tokens to every session and 1,656 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 2026-08-31.

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