gitnexus-exploring_skill

Overview

This skill helps you explore unfamiliar codebases, trace execution flows, and understand architecture using GitNexus-indexed repositories. It guides discovery from high-level context down to per-symbol callers and callees, plus full execution traces. Use it when you need to answer "How does X work?" or map where a feature lives in the repo.

How this skill works

Start by reading the repository context to get stats and staleness hints. Run targeted queries to find processes and execution flows related to the concept you care about, then inspect symbols for incoming/outgoing calls and membership in flows. Finally, open the process or source files for step-by-step traces and implementation details.

When to use it

• You want to understand how a feature or flow (auth, payments, deploy) works end-to-end.
• You need to find what calls a function or where a symbol is defined and used.
• You’re onboarding into an unfamiliar repo and need a structured discovery path.
• You want to map high-level components or identify areas of cohesion.
• You need a reproducible process to trace runtime execution across files.

Best practices

• Always READ the repo context first to check index freshness and get summary stats.
• Form a short, focused query (e.g., "payment processing", "auth flow") to limit results.
• Inspect returned processes, then run gitnexus_context on key symbols to see callers/callees.
• If the index is stale, run npx gitnexus analyze before deep dives.
• Complement traces with reading the actual source files for implementation specifics.

Example use cases

• Show me the auth flow: discover LoginFlow, trace handlers, and inspect validateUser symbol.
• What calls this function? Use gitnexus_context to list incoming callers and processes.
• Map project structure: read clusters to see cohesive areas and file memberships.
• Trace payment processing: query for payments, inspect CheckoutFlow and charge paths.
• Onboard to dotfiles repo: find main config loaders, initialization steps, and where environment is applied.