architecture-review-checklist

architecture-review-checklist is a skill for Claude Code from sethdford/claude-skills. It costs 32 tokens per session (607 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A standard checklist for reviewing software architecture, including design principles, scalability, reliability, security, operations, dependencies, testing, and cost.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for evaluating proposed systems, recording design trade-offs, checking operational readiness, reviewing security and costs, and documenting decisions.
Why use it?
It gives reviews consistent criteria and helps expose missing monitoring, security controls, recovery plans, dependency details, or cost analysis.

Skill for Claude Code

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

Part of the architecture-governance plugin — 7 skills shipped together

Good fit It is for evaluating proposed systems, recording design trade-offs, checking operational readiness, reviewing security and costs, and documenting decisions.

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

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install architecture-governance, 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-review-checklist

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

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-review-checklist"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sethdford/claude-skills/architecture-review-checklist.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 32 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 607 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 $0.00032 $0.00607
Opus 5 $0.00016 $0.00303
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00121
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00061

Measured 12d ago against content hash 19718d478745, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architecture-review-checklist 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 12d 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/architecture-governance/skills/architecture-review-checklist/SKILL.md · 54 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 54 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Architecture Review Checklist

Establish standardized architecture review process with clear criteria and repeatable outcomes.

Context

You are conducting architecture reviews. Evaluate designs against principles, quality attributes, operational readiness. Use consistent checklist; document decisions and rationale.

Domain Context

Based on architecture review frameworks and governance:

  • Design Review: Does proposed design align with principles? Are quality attributes met? Trade-offs understood?
  • Operational Readiness: Monitoring, alerting, logging, runbooks documented? Disaster recovery plan? Capacity forecast?
  • Security Review: Authentication, authorization, secrets management, data protection? Compliance with regulations?
  • Cost Impact: Infrastructure cost projections? Optimizations considered? Budget alignment?

Instructions

  1. Prepare Checklist:

    • Alignment: Does design follow architecture principles?
    • Quality Attributes: Addresses scalability, reliability, security, maintainability?
    • Dependencies: External services, databases, message queues? All documented?
    • Operations: Monitoring, alerting, logging, runbooks? On-call procedure?
    • Testing: Unit tests, integration tests, chaos testing? Coverage adequate?
    • Compliance: GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA? Data residency requirements met?
    • Cost: Projected monthly cost? Optimization opportunities?
  2. Conduct Review: Present architecture. Walk through checklist. Score each item: met, partially met, not met. Discuss gaps and remediation.

  3. Document Decision: Record what's approved, what needs work, contingencies. Link to design document. Assign owners for open items.

  4. Track Follow-Up: Monitor that remediation happens before deployment. Close items only after verification.

  5. Iterate: If review uncovers major issues, schedule follow-up review. Use past reviews to improve checklist.

Anti-Patterns

  • Reviews Without Teeth: Checklist completed, issues noted, nothing changes. Result: wastes time. Guard: Reviews block deployment; open items must be resolved or documented as accepted risk.
  • Checklist Without Context: Rote questions without understanding trade-offs. Result: surface-level feedback. Guard: Reviewer understands domain; asks "why?" on answers.
  • No Documentation: Verbal feedback, forgotten after meeting. Result: team doesn't know what was approved. Guard: Written decision with rationale; link to design docs.
  • Infrequent Reviews: Only at major milestones. Result: missed issues accumulate. Guard: Reviews on feature gates, before production, monthly architecture sync.

Read the full file on GitHub · 54 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. 12d ago First seen · 54 lines · 32 tokens per session scan A 19718d478745

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture-review-checklist is a skill published in the GitHub repository sethdford/claude-skills (41 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 32 tokens to every session and 607 once invoked, about $0.0002 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.