architecture

A framework for choosing how a software system should be structured and recording the reasoning in architecture decision records (ADRs). An ADR is a short document that preserves the context, options, trade-offs, and final choice.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to gather requirements, compare architecture patterns, choose a suitable design, write decision records, or review an earlier architectural choice.
Why use it?
It makes design choices easier to evaluate and helps future maintainers understand why the system was built that way. It also exposes the costs and limits of competing options before a decision is made.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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/phuonghx/aim-cli/architecture
Any agent
npx skills add phuonghx/aim-cli --skill architecture
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/phuonghx/aim-cli

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 76 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 629 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 $0.00076 $0.00629
Opus 5 $0.00038 $0.00315
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00126
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00063

Measured yesterday against content hash a8bf51c20b9e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

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 yesterday.

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.

aim/templates/aim-agents/skills/architecture/SKILL.md · 63 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 63 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Making Architecture Decisions

Three ideas anchor everything below:

  • Requirements come first. The shape of the system follows from what it actually needs to do.
  • Trade-offs justify choices. No option is free; name the cost before committing.
  • Decision records preserve the "why". Future maintainers inherit the reasoning, not just the result.

Read Only What the Task Needs

This skill is split across several reference files. Don't load all of them. Look at the map, decide what the current request calls for, and open just those.

File What it holds Open it when
context-discovery.md The questions to ask up front and a way to classify the project You're at the very start of a design
trade-off-analysis.md Templates for decision records plus a method for weighing options You're capturing a decision in writing
pattern-selection.md Branching guides for picking patterns and a list of traps to avoid You're deciding which pattern fits
examples.md Three fully worked designs (MVP, SaaS, enterprise) You want a concrete reference to compare against
patterns-reference.md A compact catalog of patterns side by side You need a fast lookup or comparison

Companion Skills

Architecture touches neighboring concerns. Hand off to these where they fit:

Skill Reach for it when
@[skills/database-design] The decision is about how to model and structure data
@[skills/api-patterns] The focus shifts to designing the API surface
@[skills/deployment-procedures] You're working out how the system ships and runs

The Guiding Principle

Begin with the smallest design that works, and let complexity earn its place.

  • Default to the simple option.
  • Reach for heavier patterns only after a real need shows up — not in anticipation of one.
  • Layering a pattern on later is straightforward.
  • Tearing one out once code depends on it is painful. Adding is cheap; removing is expensive.

Read the full file on GitHub · 63 lines

Files

What ships with it

5 files 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. yesterday First seen · 63 lines · 76 tokens per session scan A a8bf51c20b9e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture is a skill published in the GitHub repository phuonghx/aim-cli (1 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 76 tokens to every session and 629 once invoked, about $0.0004 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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