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.
npx skills add PracticalSwan/agent-skills --skill improve-codebase-architecturegit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/PracticalSwan/agent-skillsWrote 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/practicalswan/agent-skills/improve-codebase-architecture)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/improve-codebase-architecture"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/improve-codebase-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/practicalswan/agent-skills/improve-codebase-architecture"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/improve-codebase-architecture.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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 | $0.00036 | $0.01885 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00018 | $0.00942 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00007 | $0.00377 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00188 |
Grade A, and why
improve-codebase-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 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.
This is a copy
80% identical to improve-codebase-architecture — 56 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 122 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Improve Codebase Architecture
Surface architectural friction and propose deepening opportunities: refactors that turn shallow modules into deep ones. The aim is testability and AI-navigability.
This command is informed by the project's domain model and built on a shared design vocabulary:
- Call the Skill tool with "codebase-design" for the architecture vocabulary (module, interface, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality) and its principles (the deletion test, "the interface is the test surface", "one adapter = hypothetical seam, two = real"). Use these terms exactly in every suggestion, and don't drift into "component," "service," "API," or "boundary."
- The domain language in
CONTEXT.mdgives names to good seams; ADRs indocs/adr/record decisions this command should not re-litigate.
Process
1. Explore
Scope before you scan: YAGNI. Deepening a module pays off by making future changes to it easier, so put extra weight on the parts of the codebase that have recently changed. Decide where to look before you look:
- If the user named a direction (a module, a subsystem, a pain point), take it, and skip the inference below.
- Otherwise, walk back a good stretch of the commit history (
git log --oneline) to find the codebase's hot spots, the files and areas that keep coming up, and let those paths pull your attention first. If the changes are scattered with no clear hot spot, widen the net.
Read the project's domain glossary (CONTEXT.md) and any ADRs in the area you're touching first.
Then spawn a sub-agent to walk the codebase. Don't follow rigid heuristics; explore organically and note where you experience friction:
- Where does understanding one concept require bouncing between many small modules?
- Where are modules shallow, with an interface nearly as complex as the implementation?
- Where have pure functions been extracted just for testability, but the real bugs hide in how they're called (no locality)?
- Where do tightly-coupled modules leak across their seams?
- Which parts of the codebase are untested, or hard to test through their current interface?
What ships with it
4 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.
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.
- 3d ago Changed · +2 lines 9634e10a1694
- 4d ago Changed 7f2d6bb8220d
- 7d ago First seen · 120 lines · 36 tokens per session scan A b1e8f36ee5f7
improve-codebase-architecture is a skill published in the GitHub repository PracticalSwan/agent-skills (14 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 36 tokens to every session and 1,885 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 80% identical to improve-codebase-architecture, differing in 56 lines, and is treated as a copy.
Other skills, from other repositories
agent-review
Critically review a Stencila agent and suggest improvements. Use when asked to review, audit, critique, evaluate, or improve an agent directory or AGENT.md file. Covers frontmatter validation, system instruction quality, configuration correctness, and adherence to the Agent schema.
truecourse-analyze
Run TrueCourse architecture analysis on this repository.
simplify-codebase
Simplification audit or authorized codebase simplification whose stated objective is to remove accidental complexity. Use for evidence-backed deletion or consolidation of dead code, duplicate state, redundant APIs or layers, ownerless abstractions, obsolete compatibility or design records, and over-engineering in any…
code-quality-principles
Applies KISS, YAGNI, and SOLID principles for clean code with reduced complexity. Use when refactoring or reviewing code for over-engineering.
plugin-review
Review plugin quality with tiered checks and dependency scoping. Use for PR and pre-release audits.
codebase-onboarding
Use when you land in an unfamiliar or inherited codebase and must get productive fast: a breadth-first map of entry points, request flow, module ownership, hidden side effects (cron, webhooks, workers) and churn hotspots, committed as CODEBASE-MAP.md. NOT a deep audit of one module (that is analyze) or chasing one…