Understand Chat
Ask questions about your codebase using an AI-powered knowledge graph.
Installation
- Make sure Claude is on your device and in your terminal.
Skills load from
~/.claude/skills/when Claude Code starts up — so you need it on your machine first. If you don't have it yet, install it once with the command below, then runclaudein any terminal to verify.One-time setupnpm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-codeAlready have it? Skip ahead.
- Paste into Claude Code or into your terminal.
This copies the whole skill folder into
~/.claude/skills/understand-chat-egonex-ai/— the SKILL.md plus any scripts, reference docs, or templates the skill ships with. Safe default: works for every skill.Faster alternative (instruction-only skills)
Skips the clone and grabs only the SKILL.md file. Don't use this if the skill ships Python scripts, reference markdowns, or asset templates — they won't be downloaded and the skill will fail when it tries to load them.
Quick install (SKILL.md only)Sign up to copy - Restart Claude Code.
Quit and reopen Claude Code (or any other agent that loads from
~/.claude/skills/). New skills are picked up on startup. - Just ask Claude.
Skills auto-activate when your request matches the skill's description — no slash command needed. Trigger phrases live in the skill's own frontmatter; you can read them in the “What this skill does” section above.
Prefer to read the source first? Open on GitHub.
When Claude uses it
Use when you need to ask questions about a codebase or understand code using a knowledge graph
What this skill does
/understand-chat
Answer questions about this codebase using the knowledge graph at .understand-anything/knowledge-graph.json.
Graph Structure Reference
The knowledge graph JSON has this structure:
project— {name, description, languages, frameworks, analyzedAt, gitCommitHash}nodes[]— each has {id, type, name, filePath?, summary, tags[], complexity, languageNotes?}- Code node types: file, function, class, module, concept
- Non-code node types: config, document, service, table, endpoint, pipeline, schema, resource
- Domain/knowledge node types: domain, flow, step, article, entity, topic, claim, source
- IDs use the node type as prefix, e.g.
file:path,function:path:name,config:path,article:path
edges[]— each has {source, target, type, direction, weight}- Key types: imports, contains, calls, depends_on, configures, documents, deploys, triggers, contains_flow, flow_step, related, cites
layers[]— each has {id, name, description, nodeIds[]}tour[]— each has {order, title, description, nodeIds[]}
How to Read Efficiently
- Use Grep to search within the JSON for relevant entries BEFORE reading the full file
- Only read sections you need — don't dump the entire graph into context
- Node names and summaries are the most useful fields for understanding
- Edges tell you how components connect — follow imports and calls for dependency chains
Instructions
-
Check that
.understand-anything/knowledge-graph.jsonexists in the current project root. If not, tell the user to run/understandfirst. -
Read project metadata only — use Grep or Read with a line limit to extract just the
"project"section from the top of the file for context (name, description, languages, frameworks). -
Search for relevant nodes — use Grep to search the knowledge graph file for the user's query keywords: "$ARGUMENTS"
- Search
"name"fields:grep -i "query_keyword"in the graph file - Search
"summary"fields for semantic matches - Search
"tags"arrays for topic matches - Note the
idvalues of all matching nodes
- Search
-
Find connected edges — for each matched node ID, Grep for that ID in the
edgessection to find:- What it imports or depends on (downstream)
- What calls or imports it (upstream)
- This gives you the 1-hop subgraph around the query
-
Read layer context — Grep for
"layers"to understand which architectural layers the matched nodes belong to. -
Answer the query using only the relevant subgraph:
- Reference specific files, functions, and relationships from the graph
- Explain which layer(s) are relevant and why
- Be concise but thorough — link concepts to actual code locations
- If the query doesn't match any nodes, say so and suggest related terms from the graph
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