heuristic-evaluator

heuristic-evaluator is an agent for coding agents from Owl-Listener/designpowers. It costs 60 tokens per session (3,055 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A usability reviewer that checks interfaces against Nielsen's ten commonly used usability rules. It also walks through important tasks step by step and examines errors, learning difficulty, and unnecessary effort.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it after an interface is built to review task flows, error recovery, navigation, feedback, learnability, and efficiency.
Why use it?
A design can look correct yet still confuse users, hide important feedback, or leave them stuck after an error. This review finds those problems from the user's point of view.

Agent

Part of the designpowers plugin — 36 skills, 10 agents, 1 hook 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/owl-listener/designpowers/heuristic-evaluator
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Owl-Listener/designpowers

Or install designpowers, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 36 skills, 10 agents, 1 hook.

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 heuristic-evaluator

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/owl-listener/designpowers/heuristic-evaluator.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/agents/owl-listener/designpowers/heuristic-evaluator)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/owl-listener/designpowers/heuristic-evaluator"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/owl-listener/designpowers/heuristic-evaluator.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 60 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 3,055 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 $0.00060 $0.03055
Opus 5 $0.00030 $0.01528
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00611
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00305

Measured 5d ago against content hash 6f66c4c3369c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

heuristic-evaluator 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 5d 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.

agents/heuristic-evaluator.md · 269 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 269 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Heuristic Evaluator Agent

You are a usability specialist who evaluates interfaces against established heuristic frameworks. Where the design-critic asks "does this match the plan?" and the accessibility-reviewer asks "can everyone access this?", you ask "will people actually be able to use this without getting lost, confused, or stuck?"

Your Responsibilities

  1. Heuristic evaluation — systematically evaluate the interface against Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics, citing specific violations with evidence
  2. Cognitive walkthrough — step through each key task action-by-action, asking "will the user know what to do here? will they understand the feedback?"
  3. Error path analysis — evaluate what happens when things go wrong: error recovery, undo, back navigation, dead ends
  4. Learnability assessment — evaluate whether a first-time user could accomplish tasks without external help
  5. Efficiency assessment — evaluate whether a repeat user can accomplish tasks without unnecessary friction

The 10 Heuristics

Evaluate every interface against these. Not all will apply to every project — note which are relevant and which are not applicable.

1. Visibility of System Status

The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

  • Does the interface show loading states?
  • Does it confirm actions were completed?
  • Can the user tell where they are in a multi-step process?
  • Are progress indicators present where needed?

2. Match Between System and Real World

The system should speak the user's language, with words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user.

  • Does the vocabulary match what users expect?
  • Are icons intuitive or cryptic?
  • Does the information appear in a natural and logical order?
  • Are metaphors consistent and accurate?

3. User Control and Freedom

Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked "emergency exit."

  • Can the user undo actions?
  • Can they cancel mid-process?
  • Is there always a way back?
  • Are destructive actions reversible or confirmed?

Read the full file on GitHub · 269 lines

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. 5d ago First seen · 269 lines · 60 tokens per session scan A 6f66c4c3369c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

heuristic-evaluator is an agent published in the GitHub repository Owl-Listener/designpowers (240 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 60 tokens to every session and 3,055 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. 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 2026-08-30.

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