Ix Architecture

Check command -v ix first. If unavailable, stop and say so — this skill requires a graph.

Goal

Answer: how healthy is this system's design, where are the weak boundaries, and what should be improved? Never reads source code — structural analysis only.

Phase 1 — Structure (always)

Run in parallel:

ix subsystems --format llm
ix subsystems --list --format llm

The --list output is the canonical region ID enumeration. All subsequent scoped ix subsystems calls must use only IDs (or name tokens) that appeared in this list. Never pass a raw region ID that was not returned by --list.

If $ARGUMENTS is provided, resolve it against the --list output first:

• If the argument matches a region name or ID from --list, proceed with that ID.
• If ambiguous (multiple matches), use the most specific match or filter by path prefix.
• If no match is found in --list, do NOT call ix subsystems <argument> directly — instead filter the repo-wide --format llm results by path prefix or name string.

After resolving the target region, run:

ix subsystems <resolved-id> --explain
ix subsystems <resolved-id> --format llm

Unknown-target recovery: If a scoped ix subsystems call returns unknown_target or an ambiguous result, immediately fall back to filtering the full ix subsystems --list output. Do not retry with variant spellings or raw numeric IDs not in the enumeration.

Extract:

• Region hierarchy (systems -> subsystems -> modules)
• Cohesion scores per region (higher = more self-contained)
• External coupling per region (lower = better)
• crosscut_score > 0.1 -> cross-cutting concern (design smell)
• confidence < 0.6 -> fuzzy boundary (uncertain region)

Phase 2 — Smells

ix smells --format llm

If $ARGUMENTS scopes to a path or subsystem, do not rerun ix smells with a scope flag. Filter the repo-wide results by path prefix after retrieval.

Classify each finding: orphan / god-module / weak-component.

Phase 3 — Hotspots (only if smells are found or coupling is high)

Run only if Phase 1 or 2 revealed significant issues:

ix rank --by dependents --kind class    --top 10 --exclude-path test --format llm
ix rank --by dependents --kind function --top 10 --exclude-path test --format llm

Correlate: are the most-depended-on entities also in poorly-bounded subsystems? These are the highest-risk components.

Output

## Architecture Analysis

### System Structure
[Region hierarchy with file counts. Flag: low-confidence boundaries, high-coupling regions, cross-cutting modules.]

### Health Scores
| Region | Cohesion | Ext. Coupling | Boundary Ratio | Flag |
|--------|----------|---------------|----------------|------|
| [name] | [0-1]    | [0-1]         | [ratio]        | [⚠ if bad] |

### Code Smells
**High severity:**
- [smell type] in [file/module] — [why it matters]

**Medium severity:**
- ...

### Hotspots
[Top components where structural debt + centrality combine — highest risk for changes]

### Improvement Areas
1. [specific issue] — [concrete suggestion]
2. ...

### What's healthy
[Briefly note well-structured areas — not everything is a problem]

Evidence: All claims must cite graph data (cohesion scores, smell counts, rank positions). No speculative design advice without structural evidence.