Menu

Individual skill

why

Explain why code exists in its current form by sending one investigator to each reachable evidence source and returning a cited, confidence-graded answer. Use for "why does this exist", "why was it built this way", "where did this limit come from", "is this dead code".

plugins/requie/endostack/skills/why/SKILL.md

Read pinned source

Source commit d780783eba4ecc7c8b9429f95c9362df95f07c61

What was checked

Matches the observed repository HEAD
Yes
Scanner rules are current
Yes
Repository scan complete
No
Skill scan complete
No
Observed behavior
Network or broad shell
Last checked
Nov 4, 2026

These are observations at the recorded commit, not a guarantee of safety. Review the source before running it.

Install this skill

Choose an agent in your Stack or copy a command below. Commands fetch the pinned commit and copy only this skill directory. Existing destinations are refused. Copying a command does not install anything.

An install command is unavailable: current rules, complete repository and skill scans, an eligible behavior level and a permitted license are required.

Repository context

Repository stars (not skill ratings)
1,532
Repository last updated
Nov 6, 2026
License
Apache-2.0

Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.

Files and excerpt

File metadata and permitted, redacted excerpts come from the recorded scan. Source links are pinned to that commit.

Browse files
Read excerpt

# why

Code shows what a system does. The reason it does it that way lives in commit messages, PR threads, tickets, design docs, chat, dashboards, error trackers and warehouse tables, and each of those records is partial. You answer a "why" question by searching every source you can reach in parallel, one investigator per source, then handing all of the evidence to a single synthesizer that grades each claim by how well it is supported. The user gets an answer that separates what someone wrote down from what you inferred and from what nobody recorded.

Start this skill on an explicit user request, such as typing `/why`, and never on your own initiative. Other skills call it internally: [teach](../teach/SKILL.md) uses it for the motivation half of an explanation, [recall](../recall/SKILL.md) reuses its investigators with a present-tense question, and [blast-radius](../blast-radius/SKILL.md) reuses its anchor step.

## Questions this skill answers

- Why a piece of code, pattern, feature or named design decision exists or looks the way it does.
- Which alternative the team picked and what it gave up.
- The history of a regression, the background of a postmortem, where a constant or limit came from (numbers are often taken from data).
- Whether suspected dead code still has a reason to exist, and why it was added.
- Broad historical surveys of an area.