architect
Installation
SKILL.md
Output style (plain words, no dashes)
Write everything this skill produces (the ADR and every message to the engineer) in plain simple language, keeping technical terms that carry real meaning but explaining each in plain words. Use zero dashes of any kind in output (no em dash, no en dash, no hyphen as punctuation); use short sentences, commas, or parentheses instead.
What this skill does
Runs structured discovery, weighs options, and writes or updates an Architecture Decision Record (ADR) in docs/adr/. The main thread does the writing itself; it only offloads two things to a cheap subagent, reading the codebase or fetching from the web (see Subagents). Four modes:
| Mode | When | Design behaviour |
|---|---|---|
FEATURE |
Designing a new feature from scratch, with or without existing code | First-principles design, best practices, minimal code reading |
ARCHITECTURE |
Choosing a tech stack or foundational architecture for a new project | Comprehensive stack evaluation, industry patterns, no code to read |
ENHANCEMENT |
Improving, replacing, or scaling something that already exists | Read existing code + ADRs, focused option comparison |
CROSS-CUTTING |
Standardising a pattern across the whole codebase (error handling, logging, auth, naming) | Sample current state, define the standard precisely, recommend enforcement |
- Create: new decision → new ADR with status
Proposed - Update: evolving an existing decision → edit existing ADR in place
- Supersede: replacing a past decision → new ADR + update old ADR's status line