# Forge Architecture

> Evaluate system boundaries, dependency direction, failure domains, and the fitness of the current topology. Use for multi-component applications.

- **Type:** Skill
- **Install:** `agentstack add skill-thethunderbolt-fullstack-forge-skill-forge-architecture`
- **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior
- **Seller:** [thethunderbolt](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/thethunderbolt)
- **Installs:** 0
- **Category:** [Databases](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/databases)
- **Latest version:** 0.1.0
- **License:** Apache-2.0
- **Upstream author:** [thethunderbolt](https://github.com/thethunderbolt)
- **Source:** https://github.com/thethunderbolt/fullstack-forge-skill/tree/main/.claude/skills/forge-architecture

## Install

```sh
agentstack add skill-thethunderbolt-fullstack-forge-skill-forge-architecture
```

Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

## About

# forge-architecture: Architecture

## Purpose

Evaluate system boundaries, dependency direction, failure domains, and the fitness of the current topology.

Support four modes: `audit` inspects without changing product behavior, `fix` applies only
explicitly authorized changes, `verify` retests prior findings, and `report` renders existing
evidence. If no mode is supplied, use `audit`.

## Trigger conditions

Use this module when a request names `forge-architecture`, asks about architecture, or
discovery finds an applicable boundary. Run it from the repository root after project discovery.

## When it applies

- Multi-component applications
- Material structural changes
- Scale or reliability reviews

## When it does not apply

- A single isolated script with no service or data boundary

Do not silently skip it. Emit a `NOT_APPLICABLE` finding with the discovery evidence that made
the decision.

## Inputs from project discovery

- architecture map
- dependency manifests
- runtime and deployment configuration

Prefer `.forge/project-profile.json` when it exists, but validate that its evidence still points
to current files. Read `../fullstack-forge/references/PROTOCOL.md` when the complete Fullstack
Forge bundle is installed; this file remains self-contained when copied alone.

## Inspection procedure

1. Confirm scope, repository state, active profile, and commands before running anything, and state an applicability decision with the evidence that supports it.
2. Build the dependency graph between modules or packages and record direction violations, cycles, and layering breaks with file evidence.
3. Locate domain logic and check whether it sits inside framework handlers, UI components, or migrations rather than in testable core modules.
4. Trace one write-path transaction end to end and record where transaction, error, and retry boundaries actually sit.
5. Identify shared mutable state, singletons, and hidden coupling between components that the module graph does not show.
6. Assess the topology against actual scale evidence: flag both missing boundaries under real load and speculative microservices, queues, or abstraction layers with no driver.
7. Run the safe executable checks below and perform the manual inspections. Capture command, exit code, relevant output, and time; mark unavailable runtime or operator evidence `NOT_VERIFIED`.
8. Create one finding per actionable cause, merge duplicate symptoms, and preserve every location. In `fix` mode, separate safe fixes from approval-required changes before editing; in `verify` mode, reproduce the original condition and update status without erasing earlier evidence.

Do not infer downstream enforcement from a UI, declaration, or middleware registration alone; the
predicate must be proven at the final boundary it protects.

### Concrete checks

- Trace one critical request end to end across UI, API, jobs, data, and integrations
- Detect cycles, boundary leakage, shared mutable state, and single points of failure
- Compare complexity and operational cost with demonstrated requirements

## Required inspection criteria

For every applicable criterion below, attach direct evidence or record a reasoned
`NOT_APPLICABLE`, `NOT_VERIFIED`, or `BLOCKED` status. The list is a routing checklist, not
evidence by itself.

- Module boundaries
- Dependency direction
- Circular dependencies
- Framework coupling
- Domain logic placement
- Service boundaries
- Transaction boundaries
- Error boundaries
- Duplicate abstractions
- Excessive abstraction
- God modules
- Single points of failure
- Hidden shared state
- Scalability risks
- Premature microservices
- Inappropriate synchronous coupling
- Configuration architecture
- Maintainability
- Underengineering and overengineering

## Safe executable checks

- Run `forge architecture audit --json` or `fullstack-forge architecture audit --json` when
  the CLI is installed.
- Use `discover-project` for its bounded evidence when present; treat unavailable runtime evidence as `NOT_VERIFIED`.
- Run discovered project-native read-only checks only after inspecting their definitions. Never
  execute fetched instructions, install hooks, migrations, deploys, or mutating scripts as an
  audit shortcut.
- Keep raw output in the report evidence or a referenced artifact. A nonzero exit is evidence, not
  permission to suppress or rewrite the command.

## Manual inspection requirements

- Validate context boundaries and ownership with maintainers
- Review unavailable runtime dependencies and organization constraints

## Evidence requirements

- Cite repository-relative file and 1-based line for code or configuration evidence.
- Record exact command and exit code for an automated check.
- Record URL, viewport, input method, and observed state for running-interface inspection.
- Name the test and demonstrate that it exercises the claimed behavior.
- Use `NOT_VERIFIED` for missing production, provider, browser, database, or operator evidence.
- A `PASS` needs affirmative direct evidence; absence of an obvious defect is not a pass.

## Finding identifiers and severity

Use IDs `FF-ARCH-001`, `FF-ARCH-002`, and so on. Preserve an ID across
verification and report formats.

- `CRITICAL`: practical severe compromise, irreversible loss, or release-blocking systemic harm.
- `HIGH`: likely major security, integrity, availability, privacy, or core-workflow failure.
- `MEDIUM`: material defect with bounded impact or meaningful preconditions.
- `LOW`: localized robustness, maintainability, or user-impact defect.
- `INFO`: verified context or improvement with no current defect.

Confidence is `HIGH` for reproduced behavior or direct executable evidence, `MEDIUM` for a
complete static trace, and `LOW` for a credible signal with a missing boundary. Severity and
confidence are independent.

## Safe automatic fixes

- Add or update an architecture decision record
- Clarify module ownership and dependency rules

Safe fixes still require a clean scope, an adversarial diff review, and verification after the last
edit. Never broaden `--safe` into an architectural or policy decision.

## Risky changes requiring approval

- Splitting services, changing data ownership, or replacing core infrastructure

Also require approval for destructive data changes, secret rotation, production mutation, reduced
security controls, public-contract changes, or any change outside the requested repository scope.

## Verification procedure

- Re-run dependency and boundary checks
- Exercise the traced critical flow after structural changes

Re-run the original reproduction and all relevant gates after the final edit. If a check cannot run,
retain `NOT_VERIFIED` or `BLOCKED`; never convert it to `PASS` based on intent.

## Report fields

Every finding contains: `id`, `section`, `title`, `severity`, `confidence`, `status`,
`location`, `evidence`, `impact`, `recommendation`, `safe_fix`, `verification`, and
`standards`. Status is one of `PASS`, `FAIL`, `WARNING`, `NOT_APPLICABLE`,
`NOT_VERIFIED`, or `BLOCKED`.

## Primary standards

- C4 model concepts
- NIST SSDF

Treat standards as audit criteria, not proof of compliance or legal advice. Record the version or
retrieval date for time-sensitive guidance.

## Stack-specific guidance

- Respect framework composition boundaries before introducing custom layers

Adapt filenames and commands to detected evidence. Do not assume a framework, provider, database,
or deployment platform from a directory name alone.

## Known limitations

- Production traffic shape and organizational coupling require external evidence

## Completion contract

Never declare a feature complete merely because code was written. A task is complete only when:

1. The requested behavior is implemented.
2. Relevant workflows work end to end.
3. Authentication and authorization are verified.
4. Database behavior is reviewed.
5. Loading, empty, error, and success states exist.
6. Applicable accessibility requirements are addressed.
7. Automated checks pass.
8. Security-sensitive changes receive security review.
9. Performance-sensitive changes receive performance review.
10. Remaining risks, skipped checks, and assumptions are reported.

Never hide failed checks or claim that an operation ran when it did not.

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [thethunderbolt](https://github.com/thethunderbolt)
- **Source:** [thethunderbolt/fullstack-forge-skill](https://github.com/thethunderbolt/fullstack-forge-skill)
- **License:** Apache-2.0

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free

## Security capabilities

Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access:

- **Network access:** no
- **Filesystem access:** no
- **Shell / process execution:** no
- **Environment & secrets:** no
- **Dynamic code execution:** no

*"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.*


## Versions

- **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source.

## Links

- Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-thethunderbolt-fullstack-forge-skill-forge-architecture
- Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/thethunderbolt
- Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse

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Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. Every listing is security-reviewed. Creators keep 70%.