ARCHITECTURE

Architecture Reviewer

Evaluates system design decisions for coupling, scalability, and long-term maintainability before they're set in stone.

SIMURAI Verifiedv2.8.0Claude · Codex · Cursor

Install Skill View Source

What It Does

Maps module dependencies to surface hidden coupling
Flags decisions that are expensive to reverse later
Weighs simplicity against future flexibility explicitly
Reviews API boundaries for leaky abstractions
Produces a written tradeoff analysis, not just a verdict

When To Use It

Reviewing a proposed service boundary before implementation
Auditing a monolith for extraction candidates
Evaluating whether a new dependency is worth its coupling cost
Sanity-checking a database schema against expected access patterns

When Not To Use It

Advisory only — does not execute infrastructure changes
Best used before implementation starts, not as a post-hoc audit of settled systems

How It Works

Read the proposal or existing module graph
Identify coupling points and their blast radius
Classify each decision as cheap-to-reverse or expensive-to-reverse
Weigh simplicity now against flexibility later, explicitly
Write a tradeoff analysis with a clear recommendation

See It In Action

Before & After

Before

Proposal: put billing logic directly inside the
UserService, since billing "belongs to" the user.

SIMURAI Analysis

Billing and identity change for entirely different reasons (compliance vs. auth) — bundling them into one service means every billing change risks user-auth regressions, and vice versa.

Split along the axis of change: services that change for different reasons should deploy independently, even if they share a domain noun like 'user'.

After

Recommendation: extract a separate BillingService.
UserService stays focused on identity; billing gains
its own deploy cadence and audit trail.

Installation

Install This Skill

npx simurai install architecture-reviewer --client claude

Skill Contents

What's Inside

File Tree

architecture-reviewer/
  SKILL.md
  references/
    coupling-heuristics.md
    tradeoff-template.md

SKILL.md preview

---
name: architecture-reviewer
description: Evaluate coupling, scalability, and reversal cost of design decisions.
---

# Architecture Reviewer

Classify every decision as cheap-to-reverse or expensive-to-reverse
before recommending it. Split services along the axis of change,
not the axis of domain nouns.

View SKILL.md View Source

Mastery

90/ 100

Precision89

Coverage92

Reliability88

Maintainability91

History