A coding agent skill for learning codebases by "deriving the design yourself": it starts by asking why the project exists, guiding you solely through questions without direct explanations, helping you step-by-step figure out how the system should be designed.
Stars 354 (+14 / 24h)
Reasoning
- As you answer questions, the background agent reads code, cross-file references, and commits related to design changes, compiling them into 5–10 questions ordered by build sequence, each with constraints and actual design details, saved in .rederive/map.md (the author advises not opening it until you are done)
- It does not trust commit messages, so it works even for repositories largely written by AI with few major commits; when you get stuck, it narrows questions to a few options, and after two consecutive errors, it proactively visualizes the problem
- .rederive/log.md records where you got stuck and what you figured out on your own; .rederive/ is automatically added to local git exclusions, and no telemetry is sent
Usage
- npx skills add EricJujianZou/rederive (use -g to install for all projects); Claude Code can also use /plugin marketplace add EricJujianZou/rederive, followed by /plugin install rederive@rederive
- In the agent, type /rederive, /rederive ~/code/myapp, or /rederive followed by a GitHub link (which clones to the current directory); requires git, bash, and python3
Risks
- The README is very short and lacks effectiveness evaluations; those who want a quick overview of a codebase may find it slow
- The repository was created on 10 19, licensed under MIT