how

A read-only guide for explaining how code, a subsystem, or an application's architecture works by tracing its real implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for code walkthroughs, runtime traces, ownership and layering explanations, or architecture critiques.
Why use it?
It helps developers build an accurate mental model instead of relying on names, assumptions, or a shallow overview.

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/ykorovko/dotagents/how
Any agent
npx skills add ykorovko/dotagents --skill how
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ykorovko/dotagents

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 39 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 854 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 $0.00039 $0.00854
Opus 5 $0.00019 $0.00427
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00171
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00085

Measured 2d ago against content hash 1a733b92f925, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

how 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/how/SKILL.md · 55 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 55 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

How

Explore the codebase and give the user a working mental model of how something operates. Explain mechanics and architecture, not historical motivation. When why is also loaded, incorporate its evidence about historical motivation. Installation alone does not load or invoke another skill.

Treat this as a read-only investigation unless the user also asks for changes.

Choose the mode

  • Explain is the default. Trace the implementation and describe it clearly.
  • Critique applies only when the user asks about architectural problems, tradeoffs, or improvements. Explain the current design before judging it.

Explore

  1. State the scope you inferred from the request. If it is ambiguous, use the surrounding context and make the assumption visible.
  2. Find the real entry point. Trace callers, callees, data transformations, state changes, and side effects through the implementation. Read code rather than guessing from names.
  3. Identify the types, services, modules, or processes that carry the design. Note who owns each responsibility and where system boundaries sit.
  4. Check configuration, feature flags, generated code, persistence, queues, external APIs, and tests when they affect the flow.
  5. Follow the path until you can connect the trigger to its outcome without hand-waving. Record gaps instead of filling them with plausible behavior.

For a narrow question, investigate directly. For a large subsystem, split the exploration into independent slices only when the harness supports delegation and the user permits it. When delegating, read references/explorer-prompt.md and adapt its template for each distinct slice. Keep delegated work read-only and verify the findings against the code before using them.

Explain

Adapt the response to the question rather than forcing every section. A useful explanation usually contains:

  • Overview. What the subsystem does and where it fits.
  • Key concepts. Only the types and abstractions needed to follow the flow.
  • How it works. The trigger, sequence, data movement, decisions, and side effects, with concrete file:line references.
  • Where it lives. A short map of the files a maintainer would open first.
  • Gotchas and gaps. Surprising behavior, sharp edges, and anything you could not verify.

Read the full file on GitHub · 55 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 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. 2d ago First seen · 55 lines · 39 tokens per session scan A 1a733b92f925

Subscribe to this mod's changes

how is a skill published in the GitHub repository ykorovko/dotagents (0 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 39 tokens to every session and 854 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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