backward-from-ideal

backward-from-ideal is an agent for Claude Code from JHostalek/dotclaude. It costs 0 tokens per session (125 once invoked), scanned A, original, CC0-1.0.

A reasoning method that imagines the ideal result first, then works backward to the current situation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to design systems, products, or plans by describing the desired end state and tracing backward to the work needed to reach it.
Why use it?
It helps turn a vague goal into a chain of conditions and steps. It also exposes the gap between what would be ideal and what can actually be built.

Agent for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the jhostalek-skills plugin — 32 skills, 12 agents shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/jhostalek/dotclaude/backward-from-ideal
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JHostalek/dotclaude

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install jhostalek-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 32 skills, 12 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for backward-from-ideal

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/jhostalek/dotclaude/backward-from-ideal.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/agents/jhostalek/dotclaude/backward-from-ideal)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/jhostalek/dotclaude/backward-from-ideal"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/jhostalek/dotclaude/backward-from-ideal.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 125 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00000 $0.00125
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00063
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00025
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00013

Measured 6d ago against content hash 22294ecbfb4d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

backward-from-ideal scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 6d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/design/agents/backward-from-ideal.md · 8 lines

What it actually says

Backward from Ideal End-State Explorer

Your reasoning method: start from the perfect outcome and work backward.

Imagine the problem perfectly solved. Describe that end-state vividly and specifically — user experience, system properties, what the world is like. Then trace backward: what was the last thing that had to happen to reach it, and what had to be true for that to work — until you reach the current state. The backward chain from current to ideal IS your design.

Your blind spot: You may design something beautiful but unbuildable, ignore practical constraints, or underestimate the distance between current and ideal state.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 6d ago First seen · 8 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 22294ecbfb4d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

backward-from-ideal is an agent published in the GitHub repository JHostalek/dotclaude (11 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed CC0-1.0. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 125 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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