Last week I ran vladikk/modularity’s Claude Code plugin against a few LikeC4 diagrams of a system I was working on.

My goal was to try out the plugin which is grounded in the Balanced Coupling model.

What the plugin does

The plugin contains two skills:

/modularity:design — generates a modular architecture from requirements (design systems from scratch)

/modularity:review — analyzes an existing codebase for coupling imbalances

How I used it

I first installed the plugin, cloned the repository where the software system LikeC4 diagrams are versioned and ran the /modularity:review command. The skill then produced a report containing:

  • An Executive Summary with an overview of the software system
  • A Coupling Overview listing each integration’s:
    • Respective module and its dependencies
    • Strength: Intrusive, Model, Functional
    • Distance: Cross-team
    • Volatility: High, Medium
    • Balanced?: Critical, Tolerable

What came out of it

For each of the listed integrations, a detailed report describes identified Knowledge Leakage, Complexity Impact, Cascading Changes and, most importantly, Recommended Improvements with Trade-off detailing the costs of implementing the improvements that would bring balance to the surfaced coupling.

Worth trying

If you’re already using LikeC4 (or any architecture-as-code tool), run /modularity:review, and you get a principled critique in seconds.

It won’t replace a deep architecture review, but it surfaces the right questions fast and gives you vocabulary to discuss trade-offs with your team.

For a deep-dive into modularity, check out Vlad Khononov’s book: Balancing Coupling in Software Design: Universal Design Principles for Architecting Modular Software Systems.