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Rederive

Learn a codebase by re-deriving its design decisions from first principles through Socratic questioning instead of reading explanations.

EducationIntermediate★ 353⑂ 12AI score 9/10Last updated: Oct 25, 2026

What it does

  • Takes your repo or any open-source repo (local path or git URL), analyzes notable commits, hot files, design docs and import links to build a decision map (.rederive/map.md).
  • Picks 5–10 inventable decisions (data flow, state storage, failure handling, module boundaries) and orders them the way the system would be built from nothing.
  • Then presents each as a bare problem — as if the code didn't exist — and adds constraints one at a time to break your design. If you're stuck it offers options with tradeoffs; after two wrong answers it offers a diagram sketch.
  • It never reveals the decision up front; it only confirms with the industry-standard name once you reach it yourself.
  • Progress is appended to .rederive/log.md (where you struggled, what you found alone, what was strong, better ideas you proposed).

Who it's for

  • Anyone who has to explain an AI-assisted project in an interview.
  • New joiners trying to internalize an unfamiliar or legacy codebase.
  • Engineers who want to understand why well-known projects are designed the way they are.

Example uses

  1. Run /rederive in your side project → start from "why did you build this?" and re-derive why you added caching and a job queue.
  2. /rederive https://github.com/expressjs/express → arrive at the middleware-chain idea yourself through guided constraints.
  3. Review the log before an interview to spot recurring weak spots (e.g. failure-handling strategy) and drill those.

· · · Install guide · · ·

Try it now, no install

Paste this into Claude to use the skill without installing anything.

Read the instructions in this file and follow them to help me:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EricJujianZou/rederive/HEAD/skills/rederive/SKILL.md

What I want: (describe your task here)

If Claude can't open the link, open it yourself and paste the contents instead.

↓ If it works for you, download the ZIP below and install it. Then it runs on its own — no pasting each time.

Install in the Claude app (no terminal)
  1. Download the ZIP with the button below.
  2. In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
  3. Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.
↓ Download ZIP
Install in Claude Code

Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code

Install the skill I found on AI Skill Mart.
Copy the skills/rederive folder from the GitHub repo EricJujianZou/rederive into my ~/.claude/skills/rederive/.
When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.

Install with a command instead

git clone --filter=blob:none https://github.com/EricJujianZou/rederive.git /tmp/rederive && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r /tmp/rederive/skills/rederive ~/.claude/skills/

⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.

  1. Open a terminal.
  2. Clone the repo: git clone --filter=blob:none https://github.com/EricJujianZou/rederive.git /tmp/rederive
  3. Create the skills folder: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
  4. Copy the skill: cp -r /tmp/rederive/skills/rederive ~/.claude/skills/
  5. Make the helper script executable: chmod +x ~/.claude/skills/rederive/scripts/*.sh
  6. Restart Claude Code, open the repo you want to study, and run /rederive or /rederive <git URL>.
  7. State is stored in the target repo's .rederive/ folder; delete map.md and log.md there to start a session over.
View source on GitHub ↗License: MIT