improve-codebase-architecture

improve-codebase-architecture is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering. It costs 40 tokens per session (1,698 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

An architecture review method for finding code structures that are difficult to change, test, or understand. It focuses on modules, their interfaces, and the places where behavior can be changed.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to identify refactoring opportunities, improve testability, and make a codebase easier for developers and coding agents to navigate.
Why use it?
It helps locate tightly coupled or overly complicated code before it slows development.

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/tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering/improve-codebase-architecture
Any agent
npx skills add tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering --skill improve-codebase-architecture
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 improve-codebase-architecture

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering/improve-codebase-architecture.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering/improve-codebase-architecture)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering/improve-codebase-architecture"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering/improve-codebase-architecture.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 40 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,698 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. 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 5.1 $0.00040 $0.01698
Opus 5 $0.00020 $0.00849
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00340
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00170

Measured 5d ago against content hash ef70ab10d998, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

improve-codebase-architecture 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 5d 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.

plugins/matt-engineering/skills/improve-codebase-architecture/SKILL.md · 90 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 90 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Improve Codebase Architecture

Surface architectural friction and propose deepening opportunities — refactors that turn shallow modules into deep ones. The aim is testability and AI-navigability.

Glossary

Use these terms exactly in every suggestion. Consistent language is the point — don't drift into "component," "service," "API," or "boundary." Full definitions in LANGUAGE.md.

  • Module — anything with an interface and an implementation (function, class, package, slice).
  • Interface — everything a caller must know to use the module: types, invariants, error modes, ordering, config. Not just the type signature.
  • Implementation — the code inside.
  • Depth — leverage at the interface: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface. Deep = high leverage. Shallow = interface nearly as complex as the implementation.
  • Seam — where an interface lives; a place behaviour can be altered without editing in place. (Use this, not "boundary.")
  • Adapter — a concrete thing satisfying an interface at a seam.
  • Leverage — what callers get from depth.
  • Locality — what maintainers get from depth: change, bugs, knowledge concentrated in one place.

Key principles (see LANGUAGE.md for the full list):

  • Deletion test: imagine deleting the module. If complexity vanishes, it was a pass-through. If complexity reappears across N callers, it was earning its keep.
  • The interface is the test surface.
  • One adapter = hypothetical seam. Two adapters = real seam.

This skill is informed by the project's domain model. The domain language gives names to good seams; ADRs record decisions the skill should not re-litigate.

Process

1. Explore

Scope the scan before reading broadly. Deepening pays off where future changes will cash in the leverage:

  • If the user names a module, subsystem, or pain point, use that as the primary scope.
  • Otherwise, in a Git repository, inspect a recent stretch of commit history and the paths it repeatedly changes. Start with those active areas. Treat roughly 20 commits as an initial observation window, not a fixed rule; widen or narrow it for the repository's activity.
  • If recent changes are scattered, history is too short, or the directory is not a Git repository, scope from the current task, executable entry points, test friction, and repository guidance instead.
  • State why the selected paths deserve attention and which areas were not surveyed. Do not present an unscanned repository as a complete architecture audit.

Read the full file on GitHub · 90 lines

Files

What ships with it

5 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 5d ago First seen · 90 lines · 40 tokens per session scan A ef70ab10d998

Subscribe to this mod's changes

improve-codebase-architecture is a skill published in the GitHub repository tsai09495/matt-pocock-engineering (2 stars, last pushed 11d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 40 tokens to every session and 1,698 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 2026-08-31.

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