smart-explore

smart-explore is a skill for Claude Code from thedotmack/claude-mem. It costs 41 tokens per session (2,190 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A code-search guide that uses the program’s parsed structure to find files, functions, and other code elements. It builds an outline first and loads full source only when needed.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to search for functions or topics, view a file’s structure, and inspect the complete source of selected functions or other symbols.
Why use it?
It helps you understand unfamiliar code while avoiding unnecessary reading of entire files. This can make structural exploration more focused when locating symbols or tracing a codebase.

Skill for Claude Code

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

Part of the claude-mem plugin — 16 skills, 1 MCP server shipped together

Good fit Use it to search for functions or topics, view a file’s structure, and inspect the complete source of selected functions or other symbols.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/thedotmack/claude-mem/smart-explore
About the project

Claude-Mem, now presented as Grok Mem, records an agent's work, compresses it with AI, and brings relevant notes into later sessions so the agent can remember decisions and next steps. It is intended for persistent context across agent conversations and supports multiple coding-agent environments. The catalogue add-ons provide the workflows and integrations used to operate this memory system.

thedotmack/claude-mem · 93,434 stars · on GitHub · claude-mem.ai

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 thedotmack/claude-mem --skill smart-explore
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/thedotmack/claude-mem

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install claude-mem, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 16 skills, 1 MCP server.

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 smart-explore

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

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/thedotmack/claude-mem/smart-explore"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/thedotmack/claude-mem/smart-explore.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 41 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,190 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. Third-party audits
  • Socket pass 15 Apr 2026
  • Snyk pass 15 Apr 2026
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00041 $0.02190
Opus 5 $0.00020 $0.01095
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00438
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00219

Measured 9d ago against content hash 89c834b9ed88, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

smart-explore 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 9d 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.

plugin/skills/smart-explore/SKILL.md · 194 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 194 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Smart Explore

Structural code exploration using AST parsing. This skill overrides your default exploration behavior. While this skill is active, use smart_search/smart_outline/smart_unfold as your primary tools instead of Read, Grep, and Glob.

Core principle: Index first, fetch on demand. Give yourself a map of the code before loading implementation details. The question before every file read should be: "do I need to see all of this, or can I get a structural overview first?" The answer is almost always: get the map.

Your Next Tool Call

This skill only loads instructions. You must call the MCP tools yourself. Your next action should be one of:

smart_search(query="<topic>", path="./src")    -- discover files + symbols across a directory
smart_outline(file_path="<file>")              -- structural skeleton of one file
smart_unfold(file_path="<file>", symbol_name="<name>")  -- full source of one symbol

Do NOT run Grep, Glob, Read, or find to discover files first. smart_search walks directories, parses all code files, and returns ranked symbols in one call. It replaces the Glob → Grep → Read discovery cycle.

3-Layer Workflow

Step 1: Search -- Discover Files and Symbols

smart_search(query="shutdown", path="./src", max_results=15)

Returns: Ranked symbols with signatures, line numbers, match reasons, plus folded file views (~2-6k tokens)

-- Matching Symbols --
  function performGracefulShutdown (services/infrastructure/GracefulShutdown.ts:56)
  function httpShutdown (services/infrastructure/HealthMonitor.ts:92)
  method WorkerService.shutdown (services/worker-service.ts:846)

-- Folded File Views --
  services/infrastructure/GracefulShutdown.ts (7 symbols)
  services/worker-service.ts (12 symbols)

This is your discovery tool. It finds relevant files AND shows their structure. No Glob/find pre-scan needed.

Parameters:

  • query (string, required) -- What to search for (function name, concept, class name)
  • path (string) -- Root directory to search (defaults to cwd)
  • max_results (number) -- Max matching symbols, default 20, max 50
  • file_pattern (string, optional) -- Filter to specific files/paths

Read the full file on GitHub · 194 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. 9d ago First seen · 194 lines · 41 tokens per session scan A 89c834b9ed88

Subscribe to this mod's changes

smart-explore is a skill published in the GitHub repository thedotmack/claude-mem (93,434 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 41 tokens to every session and 2,190 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.