Understand Chat
Developmentunderstand-chatUnderstand Chat is an Agent Skill for development published in the Egonex-AI/Understand-Anything repository on GitHub: a SKILL.md instruction file an AI agent can load to do this task.
Use when you need to ask questions about a codebase or understand code using a knowledge graph
How to use this skill
Bring this guide into your coding agent with a prompt tailored to the tool you use.
- Open your project in Codex.
- Copy and paste the prompt below.
- Review files and risks before approving any action.
Inspect the Agent Skill at https://github.com/Egonex-AI/Understand-Anything/blob/HEAD/understand-anything-plugin/skills/understand-chat/SKILL.md and all supporting files. Report provenance, permissions, scripts, dependencies, and security risks. Propose an exact installation into .agents/skills/understand-chat, but wait for my approval before writing files or running scripts.
Copying this prompt does not install or run the skill. Review third-party files before use.
/understand-chat
Answer questions about this codebase using the knowledge graph in the project's data directory (.ua/knowledge-graph.json, or the legacy .understand-anything/knowledge-graph.json when that directory is present).
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
-
Resolve the data directory
$UA_DIR. RunUA_DIR=$([ -d .understand-anything ] && echo .understand-anything || echo .ua)— this is the legacy.understand-anything/when it already exists, otherwise the new.ua/. Check that$UA_DIR/knowledge-graph.jsonexists in the current project root. If not, tell the user to run/understandfirst. -
Read project metadata only — use Grep or Read with a line limit to extract just the
"project"section from the top of the file for context (name, description, languages, frameworks). -
Search for relevant nodes — use Grep to search the knowledge graph file for the user's query keywords: "$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