Show HN: Scryer – Visual architecture modeling for AI agents

3 points

3 months ago

I've been working on this desktop tool (FSL license, free for commercial use) for the past month because I now spend more time in a terminal prompting Claude Code instead of using a code editor. It generally works quite well if I ask the right questions, but I still often find a lot of dead code, stubs, or poor architectural choices when I finish a session, and understanding the codebase itself can be jarring after making major changes through vibecoding.

The idea for Scryer is to provide a visual surface using C4 model diagrams to share with an AI so that we both understand the actual state of a codebase, and how proposed changes would affect it. It's basically model-driven development (like UML) but adapted for the LLM era. Because of that, I think using opinionated C4 (https://c4model.com/) is the best approach:

- It's simple enough to understand without putting the developer into a coma

- There's just enough context to guide the AI coherently

- Doesn't try to replace code, but defines structural guardrails and scope

Also, I've included some newer agent-oriented methodologies like "always/ask/never" contracts (which have turned out to be very useful), task decomposition, MCP + ACP connections, etc.

This is very experimental and early, so it's quite rough around the edges, but I'm already using it in my own dev workflow and I hope you guys check it out. I honestly think this might be the year of MDE/MDD - as we abstract away the code layer, software architecture fundamentals are becoming more important than ever.

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