Repository Architecture Analysis
Category: code analysis
Purpose: architecture review
Sensitivity: safe
Created: 1/25/2025
repository-analysiscodebase-overviewsecurity-consciousdocumentation
Use Cases
- proprietary project review
- open source analysis
- technical due diligence
- onboarding documentation
Purpose
This prompt helps analyze and document repository architectures while maintaining security and confidentiality.
It's designed to extract structural and architectural insights from codebases without exposing sensitive information like API keys, credentials, or proprietary business logic.
This is particularly useful when working with proprietary projects where you need to understand the technical architecture without compromising security.
How to Use
This prompt is designed to be used with AI coding assistants that have directory/file system access capabilities, such as:
- Claude Code (Anthropic's CLI)
- Cursor IDE
- OpenCode
- Windsurf/Codex
- GitHub Copilot Chat (with workspace context)
Steps:
- Open your project in your preferred AI coding assistant
- Ensure the assistant has access to your repository/workspace
- Copy and paste the prompt below
- The assistant will analyze your codebase structure and provide architectural insights
Best Practices:
- Run this analysis at the root of your repository for a complete overview
- For large monorepos, you can run it on specific subdirectories
- Review the output to ensure no sensitive information was inadvertently included
- Use the analysis for documentation, onboarding, or architectural discussions
Prompt
Please analyze this repository and provide a comprehensive overview of its structure and architecture without including any sensitive data, API keys, credentials, or proprietary business logic. Specifically: 1. Repository Structure: Map out the directory structure and explain the purpose of each major folder/module
2. Technology Stack: Identify the languages, frameworks, libraries, and tools used
3. Architecture Patterns: Describe the architectural approach (e.g., MVC, microservices, monolithic, layered architecture)
4. Key Components: List and explain the main components, services, or modules and how they interact
5. Data Flow: Describe how data moves through the system at a high level (without exposing actual data schemas or sensitive logic)
6. Entry Points: Identify main entry points (e.g., main files, API endpoints structure without showing implementation details)
7. Dependencies: Summarize key external dependencies and their purposes
8. Configuration Approach: Explain how configuration is managed (without showing actual config values)
9. Testing Setup: Describe the testing strategy and tools used
10. Documentation Quality: Assess what documentation exists and any gaps you notice
11. Security Considerations: Identify potential security issues, vulnerabilities, or areas of concern (e.g., authentication/authorization patterns, input validation approaches, secure coding practices, dependency vulnerabilities, exposed endpoints)
12. Missing Best Practices & Recommendations: Highlight any missing heuristics, conventions, or industry best practices that could improve the codebase (e.g., error handling patterns, logging strategies, code organization principles, performance optimizations, scalability considerations)
Please present this as a clear, well-organized summary that would help someone understand the codebase architecture without revealing any sensitive information.
Required Tools
file_system_accessdirectory_traversalcode_reading