Understand

Understand Project

I'll analyze your entire application to understand its architecture, patterns, and how everything works together.

# Check for cached project analysis
CACHE_FILE=".claude/cache/project/architecture.json"
PACKAGE_JSON="package.json"  # Or pyproject.toml, go.mod, etc.

if [ -f "$CACHE_FILE" ] && [ -f "$PACKAGE_JSON" ]; then
    # Verify cache is still valid (package.json hasn't changed)
    CURRENT_CHECKSUM=$(md5sum "$PACKAGE_JSON" 2>/dev/null | cut -d' ' -f1)
    CACHED_CHECKSUM=$(jq -r '.package_checksum' "$CACHE_FILE" 2>/dev/null)

    if [ "$CURRENT_CHECKSUM" = "$CACHED_CHECKSUM" ] && [ "$1" != "--no-cache" ]; then
        echo "✓ Using cached project analysis (saves 99% tokens)"
        jq '.' "$CACHE_FILE"
        exit 0  # Early exit with cached results
    fi
fi

echo "Analyzing project structure (will cache for future runs)..."

Phase 1: Project Discovery (Optimized with Glob and minimal Read) Using native tools for efficient analysis:

• Glob to map entire project structure (100 tokens vs 10,000+ reading all files)
• Read only key files (README, package.json) - 500 tokens
• Grep to identify technology patterns (100 tokens)
• Read entry points only after Grep identifies them (200 tokens)

Progressive Depth Levels (saves 80% on shallow runs):

DEPTH="shallow"  # Default

case "$1" in
    --medium) DEPTH="medium" ;;
    --deep) DEPTH="deep" ;;
    --frontend|--backend|--database) DEPTH="focused" ;;
esac

Shallow Analysis (500-2,000 tokens) - Default:

• Project type and main technologies (from package.json)
• Architecture pattern (from directory structure via Glob)
• High-level organization
• Tech stack summary

Medium Analysis (2,000-4,000 tokens) - With --medium flag:

• • Detailed directory structure
• • Core module identification
• • Dependency relationships
• • Key integration points

Deep Analysis (8,000-15,000 tokens) - With --deep flag:

• • Complete code pattern analysis
• • All component relationships
• • Detailed dependency mapping
• • Comprehensive documentation

I'll discover (based on depth level):

• Project type and main technologies (Glob + Read package.json)
• Architecture patterns (MVC, microservices, etc.) - from Glob structure
• Directory structure and organization (Glob only, no file reads)
• Dependencies and external integrations (from package.json)
• Build and deployment setup (Grep for build configs)

Phase 2: Code Architecture Analysis

• Entry points: Main files, index files, app initializers
• Core modules: Business logic organization
• Data layer: Database, models, repositories
• API layer: Routes, controllers, endpoints
• Frontend: Components, views, templates
• Configuration: Environment setup, constants
• Testing: Test structure and coverage

Phase 3: Pattern Recognition I'll identify established patterns:

• Naming conventions for files and functions
• Code style and formatting rules
• Error handling approaches
• Authentication/authorization flow
• State management strategy
• Communication patterns between modules

Phase 4: Dependency Mapping

• Internal dependencies between modules
• External library usage patterns
• Service integrations
• API dependencies
• Database relationships
• Asset and resource management

Phase 5: Documentation Synthesis After analysis, I'll provide:

• Architecture diagram (in text/markdown)
• Key components and their responsibilities
• Data flow through the application
• Important patterns to follow
• Tech stack summary
• Development workflow

Integration Points: I'll identify how components interact:

• API endpoints and their consumers
• Database queries and their callers
• Event systems and listeners
• Shared utilities and helpers
• Cross-cutting concerns (logging, auth)

Output Format:

PROJECT OVERVIEW
├── Architecture: [Type]
├── Main Technologies: [List]
├── Key Patterns: [List]
└── Entry Point: [File]

COMPONENT MAP
├── Frontend
│   └── [Structure]
├── Backend
│   └── [Structure]
├── Database
│   └── [Schema approach]
└── Tests
    └── [Test strategy]

KEY INSIGHTS
- [Important finding 1]
- [Important finding 2]
- [Unique patterns]

Save Analysis to Cache (99% savings on next run)

# Cache the complete project analysis with checksum
mkdir -p .claude/cache/project
PACKAGE_CHECKSUM=$(md5sum "$PACKAGE_JSON" 2>/dev/null | cut -d' ' -f1)

cat > .claude/cache/project/architecture.json <<EOF
{
  "timestamp": "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)",
  "package_checksum": "$PACKAGE_CHECKSUM",
  "project_type": "detected_type",
  "main_technologies": ["tech1", "tech2"],
  "architecture_pattern": "detected_pattern",
  "directory_structure": {
    "frontend": "path/to/frontend",
    "backend": "path/to/backend",
    "tests": "path/to/tests"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "production": 20,
    "development": 15
  },
  "entry_points": ["src/index.ts", "src/main.ts"],
  "key_patterns": ["pattern1", "pattern2"],
  "integration_points": ["api", "database", "external_services"]
}
EOF

echo "✓ Project analysis cached - next run will use cache (99% token savings)"

Optimization Summary:

• First run: 2,000-15,000 tokens (depending on depth)
• Cached runs: 500 tokens (99% savings)
• Average across 10 runs: ~1,500 tokens (85% savings)

When the analysis is large, I'll create a todo list to explore specific areas in detail.

This gives you a complete mental model of how your application works, optimized for token efficiency through aggressive caching and progressive depth levels.

Token Optimization

Expected range: 500–6,000 tokens (initial), 50 tokens (cache hit)

Caching: Caches project architecture in .claude/cache/project/architecture.json for 7 days. Invalidated when project structure changes.

Early exit: Returns cached analysis immediately if project structure has not changed.

Patterns used: Grep-before-Read, early exit, caching, progressive disclosure