Explaining Codebases

Overview

This skill explains code as it actually exists - a repository, a service, or a set of source files. The output is the same distill-style, single self-contained interactive explainer that creating-explainers produces. What differs is the intake (navigating real code instead of reading a paper) and the figure types (architecture diagrams, data-flow, execution traces, annotated code walkthroughs). It handles both onboarding overviews of a whole codebase and deep-dives on one mechanism.

Required Background

REQUIRED: Use creating-explainers for everything about the output - the HTML template, voice and style, base figure archetypes, color palettes, the outline/scaffold/prose/polish workflow, and the quality checklist. This skill only adds what is specific to code. Do not duplicate that material here.

When to Use

Use when the subject is code:

• Architecture / onboarding overview - how a project is structured: its modules, how data flows between them, the key abstractions, how the pieces fit. For a new contributor who needs the map.
• Single-mechanism deep-dive - how one algorithm, feature, or subsystem works, traced through the real implementation.

The skill picks the angle from the request and confirms it with the user during intake (overview and deep-dive want different figures and different depth).

When NOT to use: a paper, a topic, or any non-code source. Use creating-explainers instead.