architecture-decision-record

architecture-decision-record is a skill for Claude Code from sethdford/claude-skills. It costs 23 tokens per session (343 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A structured record of an important software architecture decision, including the problem, options, choice, and trade-offs. Architecture means the major design of a software system.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when choosing between significant technical approaches, recording constraints, documenting consequences, and linking decisions that replace or depend on one another.
Why use it?
It preserves the reasoning behind a decision so future developers do not have to guess why the system was built that way.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the decision-making plugin — 8 skills, 3 commands shipped together

Good fit Use it when choosing between significant technical approaches, recording constraints, documenting consequences, and linking decisions that replace or depend on one another.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-decision-record
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 sethdford/claude-skills --skill architecture-decision-record
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sethdford/claude-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install decision-making, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 8 skills, 3 commands.

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-decision-record

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-decision-record/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-decision-record)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-decision-record"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-decision-record/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 architecture-decision-record

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-decision-record"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-decision-record.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 23 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 343 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.
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 $0.00023 $0.00343
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00171
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00069
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00034

Measured 11d ago against content hash 57925e8260c0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architecture-decision-record 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 11d 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.

architect/decision-making/skills/architecture-decision-record/SKILL.md · 41 lines

What it actually says

Architecture Decision Record

Document architectural decisions with context, rationale, and trade-offs using the ADR format for organizational memory.

Context

You are documenting an architectural decision. Use ADRs to capture decision rationale and ensure future teams understand why choices were made.

Domain Context

Based on Michael Nygard's ADR format and decision documentation best practices:

  • Status: Proposed, Accepted, Superseded
  • Context: Problem statement and constraints
  • Decision: What was chosen and why
  • Consequences: Benefits and drawbacks

Instructions

  1. Describe Problem: What decision needed to be made? What constraints?
  2. List Options: What alternatives were considered?
  3. Explain Rationale: Why was this option chosen? What trade-offs?
  4. Document Consequences: What problems does this solve? What new problems does it create?
  5. Link Related Decisions: ADRs supersede, depend on, or relate to other ADRs.

Anti-Patterns

  • ADR Without Context: Decision seems arbitrary. Guard: Every ADR explains problem and constraints.
  • Only Documenting Wins: Never documenting failures or reversals. Guard: Include failures and "Superseded" records.
  • ADR Too Late: Decision made and implemented before documenting. Guard: Write ADR before implementation.

Further Reading

  • Documenting Architecture Decisions by Michael Nygard
  • ADR Repository at adr.github.io
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. 11d ago First seen · 41 lines · 23 tokens per session scan A 57925e8260c0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture-decision-record is a skill published in the GitHub repository sethdford/claude-skills (40 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 23 tokens to every session and 343 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 2026-08-30.