ask-ast-mapper

A read-only subagent tool designed to cheaply and quickly map the dependencies and Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) structure of a repository without requiring heavy LLM deductive reasoning for every file.

Purpose

When tackling large repository refactoring or analyzing architecture, the "orchestrator" AI agent often struggles to hold the full repository structure in its context window. Opening and reading every file consumes thousands of tokens and can cause the agent to lose its core instructions.

The ask-ast-mapper is a specialized, read-only subagent skill. It is expressly designed to be run by a fast, low-cost model (e.g., Claude Haiku). Its single purpose is to grep through directories, read files, map class definitions, function signatures, and imports, and return a minified ast_map.json or concise Markdown equivalent to the parent orchestrator.

<critical_constraints> ❌ STRICTLY NO modifying source code or logic. ❌ STRICTLY NO executing the application code. ✅ MUST explicitly hunt for import statements, class definitions, and public function/def signatures. ✅ MUST output the resulting map as a concise JSON or nested markdown structure. </critical_constraints>