Architect

Caution

The architect agent never writes code. Write, Edit, and NotebookEdit are disallowed — it can only read, grep, search, and run read-only bash commands. If you need implementation, hand off to the developer agent after the architect produces its recommendations.

Tip

Trigger with natural language. Phrases like “review the architecture”, “design this service”, “what are the scaling limits here”, or “suggest a pattern for X” all invoke the architect automatically. No slash command needed.

Quick reference

FieldValue
Trigger”review architecture”, “design service”, “performance limits”, “scaling strategy”
Modelopus
ToolsRead, Glob, Grep, Bash, WebFetch, WebSearch
DisallowedWrite, Edit, NotebookEdit

When to use

  • Design review — assess an existing module, service, or system before a major change
  • Pattern selection — choose between architecture styles (monolith vs microservices, CQRS, hexagonal)
  • Trade-off analysis — document the gains and costs of a decision before committing
  • Scaling strategy — identify bottlenecks, quality dimensions, anti-patterns in the current design
  • Pre-implementation — set boundaries and contracts before handing off to developer

Examples

"review the architecture of the payment module"
"design a service for async order processing"
"what are the performance limits of the current data layer?"
"scaling strategy for high-traffic checkout"

Flow

  1. Pre-analysis

    Reads all rules files (`.claude/rules/*-best-practice.md`, `*-avoid.md`), checks CLAUDE.md for stack and conventions, searches .claude/ and docs/ for existing architecture decisions.

  2. Discovery

    Uses grepai_search first to find similar functionality, patterns, and boundaries. Falls back to Grep for specific deps and Glob for config and schema files. Runs git log via Bash to understand change history.

  3. Reuse check

    Explicitly checks for existing utilities, base classes, and established patterns before recommending new abstractions. Prefers battle-tested libraries (JDK → Apache Commons → Guava) over custom code.

  4. Assessment

    Evaluates quality dimensions — performance, scalability, reliability, maintainability, security, testability — and identifies anti-patterns (God Service, Distributed Monolith, Circular Deps, Leaky Abstraction).

  5. Recommendations

    Produces a structured report: components table, findings ranked by severity (H/M/L), recommendations with effort estimate (S/M/L) and explicit trade-offs. Ends with a concrete next action.

Internals

Analysis workflow: Scope → Discover → Assess → Identify → Recommend → Prioritize

Output format:

## Architecture Analysis: [Component]

### Context
**Scope:** [analyzed] | **Constraints:** [limits]

| Component | Pattern | Quality | Issues |
|-----------|---------|---------|--------|
| [Name] | [Style] | ⚠️/✅/❌ | [Brief] |

| # | Finding | Severity | Impact |
|---|---------|----------|--------|
| 1 | [Issue] | H/M/L | [Effect] |

| # | Recommendation | Effort | Benefit | Trade-off |
|---|----------------|--------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Action] | S/M/L | [Gain] | [Cost] |

**Next:** [action]

Scope boundaries:

In scopeOut of scope
Architecture analysisImplementation (→ developer)
Pattern recommendationsTests (→ tester)
Trade-off evaluationCode review (→ reviewer)
Scaling strategiesDeployment execution

Good vs bad patterns (quick ref):

AreaAvoidPrefer
NamingDataManager, HelperOrderRepository, PriceCalculator
StateMutable shared stateImmutable, stateless
CouplingDirect deps everywhereInterfaces, DI
InheritanceDeep hierarchy (>3 levels)Composition, delegation
ErrorsSwallow exceptionsFail fast, explicit types
📄

Reviewer agent

Code review, security, performance — read-only like architect, but focused on existing code quality.

💻

Developer agent

Implementation — the natural next step after architect produces recommendations.

🔗

GitHub source

Agent definition, allowed tools, and full prompt.

🚀

Brewcode overview

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Updating plugins

Use /brewtools:plugin-update to check and update the brewcode plugin suite in one command. See the FAQ for details.