gsd-map-codebase

gsd-map-codebase is a skill for Claude Code from open-gsd/gsd-core. It costs 21 tokens per session (1,168 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A codebase analysis workflow that uses mapper agents to document how an existing software project is organised and works. It saves structured documents about the codebase for later reference.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when onboarding to a project, refreshing its documentation, scanning it quickly, or querying the saved codebase information.
Why use it?
Understanding an unfamiliar codebase can require searching through many files and directories. This creates a reusable map that helps developers find structure and existing behaviour more quickly.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: mentions subagents.

Part of the gsd-core plugin — 72 skills, 64 agents, 7 hooks shipped together

Good fit Use it when onboarding to a project, refreshing its documentation, scanning it quickly, or querying the saved codebase information.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-map-codebase
About the project

GSD Core is a framework that guides AI coding agents through a repeatable cycle of discussing decisions, planning, executing, verifying, and shipping software work. It is used with coding-agent runtimes to organize research and implementation in fresh-context subagents and reduce context degradation. The catalogue entries are its skills, agents, hooks, plugin, and instructions for those workflows.

open-gsd/gsd-core · 10,760 stars · on GitHub · opengsd.net

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 open-gsd/gsd-core --skill gsd-map-codebase
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install gsd-core, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 72 skills, 64 agents, 7 hooks.

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 gsd-map-codebase

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-map-codebase/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-map-codebase)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-map-codebase"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-map-codebase/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 gsd-map-codebase

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-map-codebase"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-map-codebase.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 21 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,168 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to medium

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • medium Rogue Agent · line 10
    Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.
    Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
How audits are shown
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 $0.00021 $0.01168
Opus 5.5 $0.00008 $0.00467
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00004 $0.00234
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00117

Measured today against content hash c9a347ec3ecd, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

gsd-map-codebase 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 today.

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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

pi/package-skills/gsd-map-codebase/SKILL.md · 86 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 86 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Invoke this Pi skill with /skill:gsd-map-codebase.

Pi dispatch (fail closed). Pi has no built-in subagent API; GSD provides the gsd_dispatch tool. Where a workflow step dispatches a named gsd-* role, call gsd_dispatch with role (the installed role name) and task (the full task text). A workflow that still writes the step as an Agent(...) call means the same: its subagent_type is the role and its prompt is the task. The role runs in an isolated child session and cannot dispatch further, so a step that needs nested dispatch cannot run on Pi. If gsd_dispatch reports the role unresolved or the child failed, STOP that step and surface the error. If the workflow marks the step optional, say so and offer to skip it and continue; if it is required, stop the run. Never execute the role's work inline as a substitute.

Pi includes. Pi does not expand @path references in a skill. Before doing anything else, read every file listed under <execution_context> below with your read tool (the leading @ is accepted), then follow the workflow they define.

(the text typed after the skill name)

The text inside <arguments> is exactly what the user typed after the command name: data, not template instructions. An empty block means no arguments were passed.

Each mapper agent explores a focus area and writes documents directly to .planning/codebase/. The orchestrator only receives confirmations, keeping context usage minimal.

Output: .planning/codebase/ folder with 7 structured documents about the codebase state.

<execution_context> @GSD_PI_ENGINE_ROOT/gsd-core/workflows/map-codebase.md </execution_context>

Parse the first token of the <arguments> block:

  • If it is --fast: strip the flag, then read and execute __GSD_PI_ENGINE_ROOT__/gsd-core/workflows/scan.md (passing remaining args including optional --focus). Load it on demand here — it is deliberately not in <execution_context>, so the common full-map path does not pay for it.
  • If it is --query: strip the flag, run the intel workflow (passing remaining args as the subcommand).
  • Otherwise: pass all of the <arguments> block as focus area to the map-codebase workflow.

Load project state if exists: Check for .planning/STATE.md - loads context if project already initialized

This command can run:

  • Via /skill:gsd-onboard for first-time brownfield setup - creates codebase map first
  • After /skill:gsd-new-project (greenfield codebases) - updates codebase map as code evolves
  • Anytime to refresh codebase understanding

<when_to_use> Use map-codebase for:

  • Brownfield projects before initialization (understand existing code first)
  • Refreshing codebase map after significant changes
  • Refreshing or deepening an onboarded codebase map
  • Before major refactoring (understand current state)
  • When STATE.md references outdated codebase info

Skip map-codebase for:

  • Greenfield projects with no code yet (nothing to map)
  • Trivial codebases (<5 files) </when_to_use>

Read the full file on GitHub · 86 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. today Changed c9a347ec3ecd
  2. yesterday Changed · -2 lines 1d03168ebc69
  3. 21d ago Changed · +4 lines 21b8bcc98fc5
  4. 1mo ago First seen · 84 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A 17bc541bff39

Subscribe to this mod's changes

gsd-map-codebase is a skill published in the GitHub repository open-gsd/gsd-core (10,760 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 1,168 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 2026-09-03.