Summarizing The Codebase

Regenerating Technical Summaries of stellar-core

Overview

This skill describes the process of generating (or regenerating) the full set of technical summary skill documents for stellar-core. These summaries provide AI agents with compact architectural context about each subsystem and the system as a whole.

Output Artifacts

The process produces:

• 21 subsystem summary files in .claude/skills/subsystem-summary-of-$X/SKILL.md
• 1 whole-system summary file in .claude/skills/stellar-core-summary/SKILL.md

Subsystem List

The following subsystem directories under src/ are each summarized individually:

Procedure

Phase 1: Generate Subsystem Summaries (Parallelizable)

For each subsystem directory listed above, launch a parallel sub-agent with the following instructions:

1. Read the entire source of all .h, .cpp, and/or .rs files in that subsystem directory, excluding any test files (files with "test" or "Test" in the name, or files ending in Tests.cpp, Test.cpp, test.cpp).

2. Create a skill document at .claude/skills/subsystem-summary-of-$X/SKILL.md

3. Write the document using this template:

---
name: "subsystem-summary-of-$X"
description: "read this skill for a token-efficient summary of the $X subsystem"
---

# Subsystem: $X

## Key Classes and Data Structures
...

## Key Modules
...

## Key Functions
...

## Control Loops, Threads, and Tasks
...

## Ownership Relationships
...

## Key Data Flows
...

The summary should be approximately 10KB and focus on:

• Key classes / data structures with brief descriptions
• Key modules and their responsibilities
• Key functions within major classes
• Summary of key control loops, threads and/or tasks
• Ownership relationships between data structures
• Key data flows between components

Special Cases

• protocol-curr: Focus on XDR type definitions, enumerations, unions, and type relationships.
• rust (non-soroban): Include the C++/Rust bridge mechanism (CXX bridge), files in src/rust/src/ and src/rust/*.h/*.cpp, but exclude src/rust/soroban/.
• soroban-env: Read from one protocol version directory (currently p26), specifically soroban-env-common/src/ and soroban-env-host/src/. Cover Val types, Env traits, Host internals, budget/metering, storage model, and VM dispatch.
• test: This contains test utilities and infrastructure, not tests themselves. Read everything but still skip files that are purely individual test cases (*Tests.cpp).

Phase 2: Generate Whole-System Summary

After all subsystem summaries are complete, launch a sub-agent that:

1. Reads ALL 21 subsystem summary files together
2. Creates .claude/skills/stellar-core-summary/SKILL.md
3. Writes a ~30KB summary covering:
   • System overview (what stellar-core is)
   • Architecture overview (component relationships)
   • Core subsystems (concise paragraph per subsystem)
   • Threading model (all thread types across subsystems)
   • Key data flows (transaction lifecycle, ledger close, catchup, history publication, overlay messaging)
   • Ownership hierarchy (Application → managers)
   • Cross-cutting concerns (protocol versioning, invariants, metrics, logging, process management, work scheduling)
   • Soroban integration (Rust/C++ FFI, Host runtime)
   • Testing infrastructure
   • Key design patterns (recurring patterns across the codebase)

The description should indicate this is good initial context for any broad-scope task on stellar-core.

When to Regenerate

Regenerate summaries when:

• Major architectural changes are made to a subsystem
• New subsystems are added
• Significant refactoring occurs across multiple subsystems
• The soroban protocol version advances (update the p26 reference to the latest)

Notes

• The soroban protocol version directory (currently p26) should be updated to the latest version when regenerating.
• Each subsystem summary targets ~10KB; the whole-system summary targets ~30KB.
• All summaries use YAML frontmatter with name: and description: fields.
• The goal is to provide enough context for an AI agent to understand the architecture without reading all the source code.