codebase-recon

codebase-recon is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill. It costs 47 tokens per session (1,531 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide for learning an unfamiliar software project by examining its Git history, which records code changes over time.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when joining a project, assessing codebase health, finding frequently changed files, or identifying areas that may need extra care.
Why use it?
It shows where development is concentrated, which areas may carry risk, how the team works, and whether the project is actively changing before you study the code.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the codebase-recon plugin — 1 skill shipped together

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/yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill/codebase-recon
Any agent
npx skills add yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill --skill codebase-recon
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install codebase-recon, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill.

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 codebase-recon

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill/codebase-recon.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill/codebase-recon)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill/codebase-recon"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill/codebase-recon.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 47 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,531 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 $0.00047 $0.01531
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.00766
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00306
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00153

Measured 3d ago against content hash c39280cd2948, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

codebase-recon 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 3d 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-recon/SKILL.md · 171 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 171 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Codebase Recon

Analyze git history to understand a codebase before reading any code. Reveals project health, risk areas, team structure, and development momentum.

Inspired by "The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code" by Ally Piechowski.

Phase 1: Probe

Before running analysis, determine repo scale to calibrate time windows and result counts.

Run this single shell command to collect repo vitals:

echo "COMMITS=$(git rev-list --count HEAD)" && \
echo "FIRST_COMMIT=$(git log --reverse --format='%ad' --date=short | head -1)" && \
echo "LATEST_COMMIT=$(git log --format='%ad' --date=short | head -1)" && \
echo "BRANCHES=$(git branch -a | wc -l | tr -d ' ')"

Use the commit count to set parameters for Phase 2:

Repo Size Commits WINDOW (--since) N (--head)
Small <500 (omit --since) 10
Medium 500-10k 1 year ago 20
Large >10k 6 months ago 30

Print the Repo Vitals line immediately:

Repo Vitals: Age: [FIRST_COMMIT to LATEST_COMMIT] | Commits: [COMMITS] | Branches: [BRANCHES] | Analysis window: [WINDOW or "all time"]

Phase 2: Parallel Analysis

Run all 7 commands in parallel (they are independent). Substitute WINDOW and N from Phase 1. For small repos, omit --since flags entirely.

2a. Code Hotspots

Most-changed files in the analysis window:

git log --format=format: --name-only --since="WINDOW" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -N

2b. Bus Factor

All-time contributor ranking by commit count:

git shortlog -sn --no-merges

2c. Bug Magnets

Files most associated with bug-fix commits:

git log -i -E --grep="fix|bug|broken" --name-only --format='' --since="WINDOW" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -N

2d. Team Momentum

Commit frequency by month (all time):

Read the full file on GitHub · 171 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. 3d ago First seen · 171 lines · 47 tokens per session scan A c39280cd2948

Subscribe to this mod's changes

codebase-recon is a skill published in the GitHub repository yujiachen-y/codebase-recon-skill (36 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 47 tokens to every session and 1,531 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.

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