build-chain

build-chain is a command for Claude Code from Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills. It costs 11 tokens per session (463 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command for designing a prompt chain, where several AI instructions produce intermediate results that build toward a larger task.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan linear, branching, repeated, or comparison-based prompt workflows, including each step's inputs, outputs, templates, and examples.
Why use it?
It breaks complex work into connected steps when one instruction is not enough.

Command for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: argument-hint in frontmatter.

Part of the prompt-architecture plugin — 7 skills, 3 commands shipped together

Good fit Use it to plan linear, branching, repeated, or comparison-based prompt workflows, including each step's inputs, outputs, templates, and examples.

Compare 6 commands from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/build-chain
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.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install prompt-architecture, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 7 skills, 3 commands.

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 build-chain

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/build-chain/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/build-chain)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/build-chain"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/build-chain/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for build-chain

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/build-chain"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/build-chain.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 11 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 463 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 $0.00011 $0.00463
Opus 5 $0.00005 $0.00231
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00093
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00046

Measured 11d ago against content hash 95758acab295, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

build-chain 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 11d 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.

claude-plugin/prompt-architecture/commands/build-chain.md · 50 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 50 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

You are designing a prompt chain. Use only skills from the prompt-architecture plugin. Follow this process:

Step 1: Understand the Task

  • What is the end goal?
  • Why can't a single prompt accomplish this?
  • What are the intermediate outputs needed?

Step 2: Design the Chain Structure

Using chain-of-thought-design:

  • Choose the chain variant: linear, branching, iterative, or debate
  • Define each step in the chain
  • For each step, define the input (from user or previous step) and expected output
  • Map dependencies between steps

Step 3: Design Each Step's Prompt

Using system-prompt-structure and constraint-specification:

  • For each step, write the prompt
  • Define constraints specific to that step
  • Ensure each step's output format matches the next step's expected input

Step 4: Design Templates

Using template-design:

  • Identify which parts of each prompt are fixed and which are variable
  • Create templates for each step with clearly defined variables
  • Define how outputs from one step feed into variables of the next

Step 5: Add Examples Per Step

Using few-shot-patterns:

  • For each step, provide at least one example of expected input and output
  • Ensure examples flow coherently across the chain

Step 6: Design Context Flow

Using context-engineering:

  • Define what context carries forward between steps
  • Specify what gets summarised or dropped between steps
  • Allocate context budgets per step
  • Design the overall information flow through the chain

Step 7: Design Failure Handling

  • What happens if a step produces poor output?
  • Define retry logic and quality gates between steps
  • Design fallback paths for chain failures

Output

Deliver a complete prompt chain specification:

  1. Chain overview diagram showing all steps and connections
  2. Individual prompts for each step
  3. Templates with variable definitions
  4. Context flow specification
  5. Examples flowing through the full chain
  6. Failure handling and quality gates
  7. Estimated token budget per step and total

Read the full file on GitHub · 50 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. 11d ago First seen · 50 lines · 11 tokens per session scan A 95758acab295

Subscribe to this mod's changes

build-chain is a command published in the GitHub repository Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills (172 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 11 tokens to every session and 463 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 2026-08-30.