architecture-kata

architecture-kata is a skill for Claude Code from sethdford/claude-skills. It costs 27 tokens per session (523 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A practice guide for designing software systems through timed, structured challenges called architecture katas.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for architecture practice, technical interviews, and team design exercises.
Why use it?
It gives you a focused way to practise making design decisions under realistic limits and learn from feedback.

Skill for Claude Code

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

Part of the architect-toolkit plugin — 7 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it for architecture practice, technical interviews, and team design exercises.

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

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install architect-toolkit, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 7 skills.

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-kata

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

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-kata"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-kata.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 27 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 523 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 $0.00027 $0.00523
Opus 5 $0.00014 $0.00262
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00105
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00052

Measured 11d ago against content hash d4818b7a8ca5, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architecture-kata 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/architect-toolkit/skills/architecture-kata/SKILL.md · 51 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 51 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Architecture Kata

Practice architectural design through structured, time-limited design challenges.

Context

You are working on architecture kata. Design a system within constraints (time, technology, team). Iterate on design, gather feedback, refine. Read problem statement and constraints carefully.

Domain Context

Based on architecture kata format (similar to code kata, but for design):

  • Problem Statement: Requirements, constraints, scale, non-functional requirements
  • Time Box: 30 minutes to 2 hours. Forces focus and trade-off decisions.
  • Constraints: Limited technology choices, team size, deployment options. Realistic constraints teach design skill.
  • Feedback: After kata, discuss solution with peers/mentor. Learn from different approaches.

Instructions

  1. Read Problem: Understand requirements. What's the core business problem? What's the scale? What's non-negotiable?

  2. Identify Constraints: Technology choices? Team size? Deployment platform? Time-to-market? These shape design.

  3. Quick Design (15-30 min):

    • Sketch components/services
    • Identify data model
    • Show communication patterns
    • Call out risks/trade-offs
  4. Document Decisions: Why this architecture? What trade-offs made? What would you do differently at 10x scale?

  5. Discuss & Refine: Present to peer or mentor. What would they do differently? Why? Learn from different perspectives.

Anti-Patterns

  • Analysis Paralysis: Spend 30 minutes debating one decision. Result: no design in time box. Guard: Make quick decisions; iterate after.
  • Overengineering: Design for 100x scale when problem is tiny. Result: complex, doesn't teach. Guard: Design for stated requirements; note what changes at 10x.
  • No Constraints: Assume unlimited budget/time/team. Result: not realistic. Guard: Use constraints to learn prioritization.
  • No Discussion: Design alone, never discuss. Result: miss learning. Guard: Share, discuss, learn from others' approaches.

Read the full file on GitHub · 51 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. 11d ago First seen · 51 lines · 27 tokens per session scan A d4818b7a8ca5

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture-kata is a skill published in the GitHub repository sethdford/claude-skills (40 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 27 tokens to every session and 523 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.

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