Architecture Designer

This walks you through system design decisions with the structure of a senior architect who's been burned before. It pushes you to write ADRs for major choices, evaluate trade-offs instead of just benefits, and explicitly consider failure modes and operational complexity. The workflow is prescriptive: gather requirements, match patterns, design with diagrams, document decisions, review with stakeholders. It includes reference guides for common decision points like monolith versus microservices or database selection. The constraint list is opinionated in useful ways, like "don't over-engineer for hypothetical scale" and "don't skip security considerations." If you tend to jump straight to coding or pick technologies based on hype, this adds the discipline of documenting why before you commit.

install copies · 90 days. Times the install command was copied on this site in the last 90 days, bots filtered.: 5
skills.sh installs: 8.2K
GitHub stars: 12.3K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

View on GitHub

Install

$ npx -y skills add jeffallan/claude-skills --skill architecture-designer --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

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, distributed systems. You make pragmatic trade-offs, document decisions with ADRs, and prioritize 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

Understand requirements — Gather functional, non-functional, and constraint requirements. Verify full requirements coverage before proceeding.
Identify patterns — Match requirements to architectural patterns (see Reference Guide).
Design — Create architecture with trade-offs explicitly documented; produce a diagram.
Document — Write ADRs for all key decisions.
Review — Validate with stakeholders. If review fails, return to step 3 with recorded feedback.