How do I install the Mapping Codebases skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add oaustegard/mapping-codebases-2 in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Mapping Codebases safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Mapping Codebases?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Mapping Codebases free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Mapping Codebases?

oaustegard (@oaustegard) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Mapping Codebases by oaustegard — Agent Skill

Name: Mapping Codebases
Author: oaustegard

Mapping Codebases

DEPRECATED — superseded by tree-sitting. This skill generated persistent _MAP.md files; tree-sitting does the same AST extraction at runtime (~700ms for 250 files) with no artifact to write, commit, or keep in sync. Use tree-sitting for "map this codebase", "explore repo", "understand structure", or any code navigation task. The final working version is archived at release mapping-codebases-v0.8.0.

oaustegard Updated Sep 21, 2026

File contents

Mapping Codebases (deprecated)

Use tree-sitting instead.

Why

This skill wrote _MAP.md files to disk — a persisted symbol inventory per directory, generated once and read many times. That tradeoff made sense when scanning was expensive. It isn't: tree-sitting parses a 250-file repo in about 700ms and answers queries against the in-memory AST in under a millisecond.

A persisted map costs what a runtime scan does not — it goes stale, it needs regenerating, it gets committed, and it must be excluded from every other tool that walks the tree. Nothing was gained for that.

Replacement commands

TREESIT=/mnt/skills/user/tree-sitting/scripts/treesit.py

# Was: codemap.py /path/to/repo          → root orientation
python3 $TREESIT /path/to/repo

# Was: reading every _MAP.md in the tree → full inventory
python3 $TREESIT /path/to/repo --depth=-1 --detail=sparse

# Was: grepping _MAP.md for a symbol     → direct lookup
python3 $TREESIT /path/to/repo --no-tree 'find:parse_input'

The archived version

The last working release is mapping-codebases-v0.8.0 (2026-03-31). It carries scripts/codemap.py and the eleven bundled parsers/*.so grammars. The release is the snapshot; nothing in this directory reproduces it.

Note that v0.8.0 ships a latent bug: codemap.py:1216 calls an unimported get_parser() inside a try swallowed by a bare except Exception, so HTML inline-JavaScript symbol extraction silently returned nothing. It will not be fixed.

---name: mapping-codebases-2description: DEPRECATED — superseded by tree-sitting. This skill generated persistent _MAP.md files; tree-sitting does the same AST extraction at runtime (~700ms for 250 files) with no artifact to write, commit, or keep in sync. Use tree-sitting for "map this codebase", "explore repo", "understand structure", or any code navigation task. The final working version is archived at release mapping-codebases-v0.8.0.---# Mapping Codebases (deprecated)Use [tree-sitting](../tree-sitting/SKILL.md) instead.## WhyThis skill wrote `_MAP.md` files to disk — a persisted symbol inventory perdirectory, generated once and read many times. That tradeoff made sense whenscanning was expensive. It isn't: tree-sitting parses a 250-file repo in about700ms and answers queries against the in-memory AST in under a millisecond.A persisted map costs what a runtime scan does not — it goes stale, it needsregenerating, it gets committed, and it must be excluded from every other toolthat walks the tree. Nothing was gained for that.## Replacement commands```bashTREESIT=/mnt/skills/user/tree-sitting/scripts/treesit.py# Was: codemap.py /path/to/repo → root orientationpython3 $TREESIT /path/to/repo# Was: reading every _MAP.md in the tree → full inventorypython3 $TREESIT /path/to/repo --depth=-1 --detail=sparse# Was: grepping _MAP.md for a symbol → direct lookuppython3 $TREESIT /path/to/repo --no-tree 'find:parse_input'```## The archived versionThe last working release is[mapping-codebases-v0.8.0](https://github.com/oaustegard/claude-skills/releases/tag/mapping-codebases-v0.8.0)(2026-03-31). It carries `scripts/codemap.py` and the eleven bundled`parsers/*.so` grammars. The release is the snapshot; nothing in this directoryreproduces it.Note that v0.8.0 ships a latent bug: `codemap.py:1216` calls an unimported`get_parser()` inside a `try` swallowed by a bare `except Exception`, so HTMLinline-JavaScript symbol extraction silently returned nothing. It will not befixed.

Frequently asked questions