understand
Installation
Copy the prompt below and send it to your AI assistant (e.g. Claude Code) — it will follow the instructions and install automatically.
Install the "understand" skill by following the instructions at https://skill123.me/install/understand.
Run in your terminal — downloads and installs to ~/.claude/skills/.
curl -fsSL https://skill123.me/install/understand.sh | bash
Download the zip and extract it into your skills directory (e.g. ~/.claude/skills/), then restart your session.
⬇ Download v1.0.0 · 173 KBNot live-tested yet — this skill is rated on static analysis only.
About this skill
Analyze a codebase to produce an interactive knowledge graph for understanding architecture, components, and relationships
/understand
Analyze the current codebase and produce a knowledge-graph.json file in the project's data directory (.ua/, or the legacy .understand-anything/ when it already exists). This file powers the interactive dashboard for exploring the project's architecture.
Documentation
Analyze a codebase to produce an interactive knowledge graph for understanding architecture, components, and relationships
/understand
Analyze the current codebase and produce a knowledge-graph.json file in the project's data directory (.ua/, or the legacy .understand-anything/ when it already exists). This file powers the interactive dashboard for exploring the project's architecture.
Options
$ARGUMENTSmay contain:--full— Force a full rebuild, ignoring any existing graph--auto-update— Enable automatic graph updates on commit (writesautoUpdate: trueto$UA_DIR/config.json)--no-auto-update— Disable automatic graph updates (writesautoUpdate: falseto$UA_DIR/config.json)--review— Run full LLM graph-reviewer instead of inline deterministic validation--language <lang>— Generate all textual content (summaries, descriptions, tags, titles, languageNotes, languageLesson) in the specified language. Accepts ISO 639-1 codes (zh,ja,ko,en,es,fr,de, etc.) or friendly names (chinese,japanese,korean,english,spanish, etc.). Locale variants supported:zh-TW,zh-HK, etc. Defaults toen(English). Stores preference in$UA_DIR/config.jsonfor consistency across incremental updates.--exclude <patterns>— Comma-separated glob patterns for additional files/directories to exclude from analysis (e.g.,--exclude "tests/*,docs/*"). These patterns take highest priority over built-in defaults and.understandignorerules. Supports gitignore syntax including!negation.- A directory path (e.g.
/path/to/repoor../other-project) — Analyze the given directory instead of the current working directory
---
Progress Reporting
Throughout execution, report progress to the user at each phase transition and during batch processing. This keeps users informed on large codebases where analysis can take a long time.
- **Phase transitions:** At the start of each phase, print a status line:
> [Phase N/7] <phase name>...
>
> Example: [Phase 2/7] Analyzing files (12 batches)...
- **Batch progress:** During Phase 2, report each batch with its index and total:
> Analyzing batch X/N (files: foo.ts, bar.ts, ...) (list up to 3 filenames, then ... if more)
- **Phase completion:** When a phase finishes, briefly confirm:
> Phase N complete. <one-line summary of result>
>
> Example: Phase 1 complete. Found 247 files across 3 languages.
---
Phase 0 — Pre-flight
Determine whether to run a full analysis or incremental update.
View full documentation
1. **Resolve PROJECT_ROOT:**
- Parse
$ARGUMENTSfor a non-flag token (any argument that does not start with--). If found, treat it as the target directory path. - If the path is relative, resolve it against the current working directory.
- Verify the resolved path exists and is a directory (run
test -d <path>). If it does not exist or is not a directory, report an error to the user and **STOP**. - Set
PROJECT_ROOTto the resolved absolute path. - If no directory path argument is found, set
PROJECT_ROOTto the current working directory. - **Worktree redirect.** If
PROJECT_ROOTis inside a git worktree (not the main checkout), redirect output to the main repository root. Worktrees managed by Claude Code are ephemeral — the data directory (.ua/, or legacy.understand-anything/) written there is destroyed when the session ends, taking the knowledge graph with it (issue #133). Detect a worktree by comparinggit rev-parse --git-diragainstgit rev-parse --git-common-dir; in a normal checkout or submodule they resolve to the same path, in a worktree they differ and the parent of--git-common-diris the main repo root.
COMMON_DIR=$(git -C "$PROJECT_ROOT" rev-parse --git-common-dir 2>/dev/null)
GIT_DIR=$(git -C "$PROJECT_ROOT" rev-parse --git-dir 2>/dev/null)
if [ -n "$COMMON_DIR" ] && [ -n "$GIT_DIR" ]; then
COMMON_ABS=$(cd "$PROJECT_ROOT" && cd "$COMMON_DIR" 2>/dev/null && pwd -P)
GIT_ABS=$(cd "$PROJECT_ROOT" && cd "$GIT_DIR" 2>/dev/null && pwd -P)
if [ -n "$COMMON_ABS" ] && [ "$COMMON_ABS" != "$GIT_ABS" ]; then
MAIN_ROOT=$(dirname "$COMMON_ABS")
if [ -d "$MAIN_ROOT" ] && [ "${UNDERSTAND_NO_WORKTREE_REDIRECT:-0}" != "1" ]; then
echo "[understand] Detected git worktree at $PROJECT_ROOT"
echo "[understand] Redirecting output to main repo root: $MAIN_ROOT"
echo "[understand] (Set UNDERSTAND_NO_WORKTREE_REDIRECT=1 to keep PROJECT_ROOT as the worktree.)"
PROJECT_ROOT="$MAIN_ROOT"
fi
fi
fi
Set UNDERSTAND_NO_WORKTREE_REDIRECT=1 if you intentionally want a per-worktree graph (rare — most users want the redirect).
1.5. **Ensure the plugin is built.** Later phases invoke Node scripts that import @understand-anything/core. On a fresh install packages/core/dist/ does not exist yet — build once.
**Important:** do **not** assume the plugin root is simply two directories above the skill path string. In many installations ~/.agents/skills/understand is a symlink into the real plugin checkout. Prefer runtime-provided plugin roots first (for Claude), then fall back to universal symlinks, skill symlink resolution, and common clone-based install paths.
Resolve the plugin root like this:
SKILL_REAL=$(realpath ~/.agents/skills/understand 2>/dev/null || readlink -f ~/.agents/skills/understand 2>/dev/null || echo "")
SELF_RELATIVE=$([ -n "$SKILL_REAL" ] && cd "$SKILL_REAL/../.." 2>/dev/null && pwd || echo "")
COPILOT_SKILL_REAL=$(realpath ~/.copilot/skills/understand 2>/dev/null || readlink -f ~/.copilot/skills/understand 2>/dev/null || echo "")
COPILOT_SELF_RELATIVE=$([ -n "$COPILOT_SKILL_REAL" ] && cd "$COPILOT_SKILL_REAL/../.." 2>/dev/null && pwd || echo "")
PLUGIN_ROOT=""
for candidate in \
"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}" \
"$HOME/.understand-anything-plugin" \
"$SELF_RELATIVE" \
"$COPILOT_SELF_RELATIVE" \
"$HOME/.codex/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin" \
"$HOME/.opencode/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin" \
"$HOME/.pi/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin" \
"$HOME/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin"; do
if [ -n "$candidate" ] && [ -f "$candidate/package.json" ] && [ -f "$candidate/pnpm-workspace.yaml" ]; then
PLUGIN_ROOT="$candidate"
break
fi
done
if [ -z "$PLUGIN_ROOT" ]; then
echo "Error: Cannot find the understand-anything plugin root."
echo "Checked:"
echo " - ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-<unset CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT>}"
echo " - $HOME/.understand-anything-plugin"
echo " - ${SELF_RELATIVE:-<unresolved path derived from ~/.agents/skills/understand>}"
echo " - ${COPILOT_SELF_RELATIVE:-<unresolved path derived from ~/.copilot/skills/understand>}"
echo " - $HOME/.codex/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin"
echo " - $HOME/.opencode/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin"
echo " - $HOME/.pi/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin"
echo " - $HOME/understand-anything/understand-anything-plugin"
echo "Make sure the plugin is installed correctly."
exit 1
fi
if [ ! -f "$PLUGIN_ROOT/packages/core/dist/index.js" ]; then
cd "$PLUGIN_ROOT" && (pnpm install --frozen-lockfile 2>/dev/null || pnpm install) && pnpm --filter @understand-anything/core build
fi
If pnpm is missing, report to the user: "Install Node.js ≥ 22 and pnpm ≥ 10, then re-run /understand."
1.7. **Resolve the data directory $UA_DIR.** All Understand-Anything artifacts live in the project's data directory. Resolve it once, now that $PROJECT_ROOT is known, and reuse $UA_DIR for every read and write in later phases:
UA_DIR="$PROJECT_ROOT/$([ -d "$PROJECT_ROOT/.understand-anything" ] && echo .understand-anything || echo .ua)"
This keeps the legacy .understand-anything/ directory when it already exists (existing projects kee
Score breakdown
Assessment methodology
Version history
Imported from Egonex-AI/Understand-Anything@main
