ARCHITECTDesigns system structure before any code is written. Forces decisions, doesn't just list options.
Category: Coding & Technical
Before / After
How should I structure this?
ARCHITECT I'm building a real-time collaboration tool with 100K concurrent users. Tech stack open.
What changes in Claude's response
Claude returns a concrete architecture with named services, the protocols between them, the data flow, and the specific reason for each choice ('using Redis for pub/sub instead of Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY because at 100K concurrent users, Postgres connection limits become the bottleneck'). It also lists what it deliberately did NOT include and why.
When NOT to use ARCHITECT
Skip ARCHITECT for things smaller than a full system. Asking it to architect a single function is silly — it'll over-design something that wanted 20 lines of code.
Codes that stack with ARCHITECT
ARCHITECT is one of 120 tested prompt prefixes. The full cheat sheet has before/after examples, warnings, combos, and 10 workflow playbooks.
See the full cheat sheet — from $5More Coding & Technical codes
/debugFinds the bug and tells you exactly where it is, not what bugs look like in general.
REFACTORCleans up messy code without changing what it does. Tells you what changed and why.
/shipitAdds the production-readiness layer Claude usually skips: error handling, edge cases, types, logging.
/convertRewrites code in another language idiomatically — not transliterated.
AUTOMATETurns a manual process you described in English into a runnable script.