codebase-navigation

A method for exploring an unfamiliar software project and building a map of its files, tools, entry points, tests, and coding conventions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to inspect project structure, identify how the application runs, locate tests and configuration, and understand naming, imports, organization, and error handling.
Why use it?
It reduces guesswork before making changes, helping an agent find the right code and follow patterns already used in the project.

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/varunk130/ai-workflow-playbooks/codebase-navigation
Any agent
npx skills add varunk130/ai-workflow-playbooks --skill codebase-navigation
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/varunk130/ai-workflow-playbooks

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 20 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 837 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 $0.00020 $0.00837
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00418
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00167
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00084

Measured 2d ago against content hash 8b586f527420, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

codebase-navigation 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 2d 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.

skills/codebase-navigation/SKILL.md · 71 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 71 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Codebase Navigation

What This Skill Enables

An agent that can quickly orient itself in any codebase - finding the right files, understanding the architecture, and identifying conventions - before writing a single line of code. Agents without this skill guess at file locations, miss existing utilities, and create duplicates.

Core Competencies

1. Project Reconnaissance

Before touching code, build a mental map:

  • Read README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, and any project-level config files
  • Identify the package manager and build system (package.json, pyproject.toml, Cargo.toml, go.mod)
  • Map the directory structure - where does source live? Tests? Config? Docs?
  • Identify the entry point(s) of the application

2. Convention Detection

Infer the project's conventions from existing code:

  • Naming: camelCase vs snake_case vs kebab-case - match what exists
  • File organization: feature-based vs layer-based vs hybrid
  • Import style: relative vs absolute, barrel files, path aliases
  • Testing conventions: co-located tests vs separate __tests__ directory, naming patterns
  • Error handling: custom error classes, result types, try/catch patterns

3. Dependency Mapping

Trace how components connect:

  • Follow imports from the entry point to understand the call graph
  • Identify shared utilities and where they live
  • Locate configuration and environment variable usage
  • Map database models/schemas to their consumers
  • Identify external API integrations and their client modules

4. Search Strategies

Use the right tool for each search type:

Goal Strategy
Find a file by name Glob patterns: **/UserService.*, **/*.config.*
Find where a function is defined Grep for function name( or def name or class Name
Find where a function is called Grep for the function name, exclude the definition file
Understand data flow Start at the API endpoint, follow the handler chain inward
Find related tests Look for files matching *.test.*, *.spec.*, or test_* near the source

Read the full file on GitHub · 71 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. 2d ago First seen · 71 lines · 20 tokens per session scan A 8b586f527420

Subscribe to this mod's changes

codebase-navigation is a skill published in the GitHub repository varunk130/ai-workflow-playbooks (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 20 tokens to every session and 837 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 2026-08-31.

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