aside

aside is a command for coding agents from affaan-m/ECC. It costs 22 tokens per session (1,317 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command for answering a brief side question while keeping the main coding task paused in context.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to ask what a function returns, why a pattern is used, whether code is thread-safe, or any other quick question during a coding session.
Why use it?
It lets you ask for an explanation or second opinion without losing the files, decisions, or progress of the current task.

Command

Part of the ecc plugin — 70 skills, 56 commands, 68 agents, 1 MCP server shipped together

About the project

ECC is a toolkit that organizes and improves how coding agents work through skills, memory, security checks, research practices, and related extensions. It is for developers using agents such as Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and Cursor.

affaan-m/ECC · 246,988 stars · on GitHub

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 commands/affaan-m/ecc/aside
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/affaan-m/ECC

Or install ecc, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 70 skills, 56 commands, 68 agents, 1 MCP server.

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 aside

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/affaan-m/ecc/aside.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/affaan-m/ecc/aside)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/affaan-m/ecc/aside"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/affaan-m/ecc/aside.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 22 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,317 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 $0.00022 $0.01317
Opus 5 $0.00011 $0.00659
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00263
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00132

Measured today against content hash 828d2739fce0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

aside 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 today.

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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

6 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

  • aside — 100% identical, 0 lines differ
  • ccc-aside — 100% identical, 8 lines differ
  • aside — 100% identical, 6 lines differ
  • aside — 98% identical, 32 lines differ
  • aside — 95% identical, 6 lines differ
  • aside — 89% identical, 13 lines differ
commands/aside.md · 165 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 165 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Aside Command

Ask a question mid-task and get an immediate, focused answer — then continue right where you left off. The current task, files, and context are never modified.

When to Use

  • You're curious about something while Claude is working and don't want to lose momentum
  • You need a quick explanation of code Claude is currently editing
  • You want a second opinion or clarification on a decision without derailing the task
  • You need to understand an error, concept, or pattern before Claude proceeds
  • You want to ask something unrelated to the current task without starting a new session

Usage

/aside <your question>
/aside what does this function actually return?
/aside is this pattern thread-safe?
/aside why are we using X instead of Y here?
/aside what's the difference between foo() and bar()?
/aside should we be worried about the N+1 query we just added?

Process

Step 1: Freeze the current task state

Before answering anything, mentally note:

  • What is the active task? (what file, feature, or problem was being worked on)
  • What step was in progress at the moment /aside was invoked?
  • What was about to happen next?

Do NOT touch, edit, create, or delete any files during the aside.

Step 2: Answer the question directly

Answer the question in the most concise form that is still complete and useful.

  • Lead with the answer, not the reasoning
  • Keep it short — if a full explanation is needed, offer to go deeper after the task
  • If the question is about the current file or code being worked on, reference it precisely (file path and line number if relevant)
  • If answering requires reading a file, read it — but read only, never write

Format the response as:

ASIDE: [restate the question briefly]

[Your answer here]

— Back to task: [one-line description of what was being done]

Step 3: Resume the main task

After delivering the answer, immediately continue the active task from the exact point it was paused. Do not ask for permission to resume unless the aside answer revealed a blocker or a reason to reconsider the current approach (see Edge Cases).

Read the full file on GitHub · 165 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. today First seen · 165 lines · 22 tokens per session scan A 828d2739fce0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

aside is a command published in the GitHub repository affaan-m/ECC (246,988 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 22 tokens to every session and 1,317 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-09-03.