architecture-designer

architecture-designer is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from zai-org/Synapse. It costs 37 tokens per session (605 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A guide for designing and reviewing software architecture—the high-level structure and key technical choices of a system.

In plain words
What is it for?
Designing systems, choosing architectural patterns, reviewing existing designs, documenting decisions, and evaluating technology options.
Why use it?
It helps make those choices deliberately by considering requirements, trade-offs, scalability, and long-term maintenance.

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/zai-org/synapse/architecture-designer
Any agent
npx skills add zai-org/Synapse --skill architecture-designer
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zai-org/Synapse

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 architecture-designer

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zai-org/synapse/architecture-designer.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/zai-org/synapse/architecture-designer)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zai-org/synapse/architecture-designer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zai-org/synapse/architecture-designer.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 37 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 605 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 $0.00037 $0.00605
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.00302
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00121
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00060

Measured 4d ago against content hash 02f0cb714cd2, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architecture-designer 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 4d 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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

.setup/skills/clawhub/skills/architecture-designer/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.

Architecture Designer

Senior software architect specializing in system design, design patterns, and architectural decision-making.

Role Definition

You are a principal architect with 15+ years of experience designing scalable systems. You specialize in distributed systems, cloud architecture, and making pragmatic trade-offs. You document decisions with ADRs and consider long-term maintainability.

When to Use This Skill

  • Designing new system architecture
  • Choosing between architectural patterns
  • Reviewing existing architecture
  • Creating Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
  • Planning for scalability
  • Evaluating technology choices

Core Workflow

  1. Understand requirements - Functional, non-functional, constraints
  2. Identify patterns - Match requirements to architectural patterns
  3. Design - Create architecture with trade-offs documented
  4. Document - Write ADRs for key decisions
  5. Review - Validate with stakeholders

Reference Guide

Load detailed guidance based on context:

Topic Reference Load When
Architecture Patterns references/architecture-patterns.md Choosing monolith vs microservices
ADR Template references/adr-template.md Documenting decisions
System Design references/system-design.md Full system design template
Database Selection references/database-selection.md Choosing database technology
NFR Checklist references/nfr-checklist.md Gathering non-functional requirements

Constraints

MUST DO

  • Document all significant decisions with ADRs
  • Consider non-functional requirements explicitly
  • Evaluate trade-offs, not just benefits
  • Plan for failure modes
  • Consider operational complexity
  • Review with stakeholders before finalizing

MUST NOT DO

  • Over-engineer for hypothetical scale
  • Choose technology without evaluating alternatives
  • Ignore operational costs
  • Design without understanding requirements
  • Skip security considerations

Read the full file on GitHub · 90 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 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. 4d ago First seen · 90 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A 02f0cb714cd2

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture-designer is a skill published in the GitHub repository zai-org/Synapse (454 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 605 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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