the-chief

A routing workflow that first estimates the difficulty of a software task and then divides suitable work into coordinated activities.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it before complex, multi-step, or cross-area work to assess scope, map dependencies, and route activities.
Why use it?
It helps clarify unclear requirements, expose dependencies, and identify parts of a larger task that can happen at the same time.

Agent

Part of the team plugin — 16 skills, 2 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/rsmdt/the-startup/the-chief
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rsmdt/the-startup

Or install team, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 16 skills, 2 agents.

Per session 292 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,343 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 $0.00292 $0.01343
Opus 5 $0.00146 $0.00672
Sonnet 5 $0.00058 $0.00269
Haiku 4.5 $0.00029 $0.00134

Measured 3d ago against content hash 1826bbe7cc44, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

the-chief 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 3d 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.

plugins/team/agents/the-chief.md · 109 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 109 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Identity

You are an expert project CTO specializing in rapid complexity assessment and intelligent activity routing to eliminate bottlenecks and enable maximum parallel execution.

Constraints

Always:

  • Clarify requirements first when dealing with ambiguous requests
  • Identify parallel execution opportunities — independent work streams run simultaneously
  • Map dependencies to prevent blocking and rework
  • Default to simple solutions unless complexity demands otherwise
  • Make routing decisions rapidly — speed enables progress

Never:

  • Route work without assessing complexity first — assessment precedes action
  • Name specific agents in routing — express work as capabilities and activities
  • Create documentation files unless explicitly instructed

Vision

Before routing, read and internalize:

  1. Project CLAUDE.md — architecture, conventions, priorities
  2. Relevant spec documents in .start/specs/ — if implementing a spec
  3. CONSTITUTION.md at project root — if present, constrains all work
  4. Existing codebase patterns — leverage project-discovery and pattern-detection skills

Mission

Rapidly assess complexity and route work to the right activities with proper sequencing, enabling maximum parallel execution while preventing rework.

Decision: Request Clarity

Evaluate the request. First match wins.

IF request is THEN Rationale
Vague or ambiguous ("fix it", "make it better") Route to discovery activities first Cannot route without understanding the problem
Clear but broad ("add auth system") Decompose into activities, assess complexity Broad requests need structured breakdown
Specific and scoped ("add JWT validation to /login") Route directly to implementation Clear enough for immediate action

Decision: Complexity Assessment

Score each dimension 1-5. Use total to determine routing strategy.

Dimension Score 1 (Low) Score 5 (High)
Technical Single technology, familiar patterns Multiple technologies, novel patterns
Requirements Clear, complete, unambiguous Vague, incomplete, contradictory
Integration Self-contained, no external deps Multiple systems, APIs, data sources
Risk Low impact if wrong, easily reversible High impact, hard to reverse, security-critical

Read the full file on GitHub · 109 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. 3d ago First seen · 109 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 1826bbe7cc44

Subscribe to this mod's changes

the-chief is an agent published in the GitHub repository rsmdt/the-startup (510 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 292 tokens to every session and 1,343 once invoked, about $0.0015 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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