explain

A tool that reconstructs and explains the coding agent's most recent actions in plain language, with optional detail about files, decisions, diffs, agents, stories, or sessions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to review the last action, inspect file changes, follow a story's history, or trace work by agent or session.
Why use it?
It makes agent activity traceable when a developer needs to understand what changed and why.

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/samibs/skillfoundry/explain
Any agent
npx skills add samibs/skillfoundry --skill explain
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/samibs/skillfoundry

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 9 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,694 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. 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 $0.00009 $0.04694
Opus 5 $0.00005 $0.02347
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00939
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00469

Measured 2d ago against content hash 77c35d0fe559, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

explain scanned grade A with 1 finding 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 2d 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.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

- smoke-test.sh uses curl with no auth (acceptable for health endpoint)
.agents/skills/explain/SKILL.md · 534 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 534 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/explain - Execution Explainer

Reconstruct, trace, and explain the last agent action in plain English. Three levels of detail: quick, verbose, and story-level. No mystery, no ambiguity -- just cold facts about what happened and why.


Usage

/explain                       Explain the last agent action (quick mode)
/explain --verbose             Full trace with file changes and decision rationale
/explain --story STORY-XXX     All actions for a story in chronological order
/explain --agent <name>        Last action by a specific agent
/explain --session <id>        All actions from a specific session
/explain --diff                Include before/after file diffs in output

Instructions

You are the Execution Explainer -- the forensic analyst of agent activity. When a developer asks "what just happened?", you reconstruct the full trace from scattered logs, dispatch state, and git history. You never speculate. If the data is incomplete, you say so.

Core Principle: Every agent action leaves traces. Find them, connect them, explain them.


PHASE 1: CONTEXT GATHERING

Where to Look

Agent activity leaves traces in multiple locations. Search all of them, in this order:

Source Path Contains
Swarm task queue .claude/swarm/task-queue.jsonl Completed and pending swarm tasks with agent assignments
Dispatch state .claude/dispatch-state.json Wave dispatch records: which agents ran, in what order, outcomes
Remediation logs logs/remediations.md Auto-fix actions taken by fixer or debugger
Escalation logs logs/escalations.md Points where agents escalated to the user or another agent
Git log git log --oneline -20 Recent commits with agent attribution in commit messages
Scratchpad .claude/scratchpad.md Agent notes, intermediate decisions, handoff context
Agent stats memory_bank/knowledge/agent-stats.jsonl Event log with durations, outcomes, error types
Memory bank memory_bank/knowledge/decisions-universal.jsonl Decisions recorded during execution
Error log memory_bank/knowledge/errors-universal.jsonl Errors encountered and how they were handled

Read the full file on GitHub · 534 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. 2d ago First seen · 534 lines · 9 tokens per session scan A 77c35d0fe559

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explain is a skill published in the GitHub repository samibs/skillfoundry (12 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 9 tokens to every session and 4,694 once invoked, about $0.0000 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

memorix-troubleshooting

Use when Memorix MCP, setup, project binding, HTTP control plane, hooks, skills, or agent integration is missing, stale, or failing.

AVIDS2/memorix · 36 tokens

memorix-sessions

Use when resuming work, preparing handoff context, binding an HTTP control-plane project, or deciding whether sessionstart is useful.

AVIDS2/memorix · 31 tokens

ring:applying-composition-patterns

React composition patterns that scale. Avoid boolean prop proliferation by using compound components, lifting state, and composing internals. Use when refactoring components with boolean prop proliferation, building flexible component libraries, or during architecture review. Skip for simple components with 1-2 props…

LerianStudio/ring · 68 tokens

ring:searching-code

Forensic code search and analysis with optional Chain of Draft (CoD) ultra-concise mode. Five-phase methodology (clarification, planning, execution, analysis, synthesis) with severity assessment. Use for targeted investigation of specific patterns, bugs, or vulnerabilities. Skip for broad architecture mapping (use…

LerianStudio/ring · 74 tokens

ring:exploring-codebases

Exploring a codebase across phases: scopes the target, detects architecture, components, and layers, deep-dives each discovered perspective, then synthesizes findings into actionable guidance with file:line evidence. Use to understand how a feature or system works before planning changes, or to orient on an unfamiliar…

LerianStudio/ring · 91 tokens

ring:auditing-dependency-security

Auditing a dependency for supply-chain risk before install (pip/npm/go/cargo): checks typosquatting, maintainer/age risk, vulnerability DBs (OSV, GHSA, Socket), and lockfile hash pinning, then emits a risk score and approve/conditional/escalate/block decision. Use when adding or updating a dependency, reviewing a…

LerianStudio/ring · 102 tokens