backdate-program

A command workflow for adding historical dates and improving the quality of parameters in an existing state benefits program. It coordinates several agents to research references, check formulas, and review tests.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when backdating a state program's parameter records, checking source references, reviewing formulas, and increasing test coverage.
Why use it?
It organizes a complicated update across research, implementation, auditing, and final review, including rules for citing PDF page numbers and finding installed agents.

Command

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/policyengine/policyengine-claude/backdate-program
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/PolicyEngine/policyengine-claude
Per session 17 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 13,137 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. 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 $0.00017 $0.13137
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.06568
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.02627
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.01314

Measured 2d ago against content hash 0e81ca1cd71f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

backdate-program scanned grade A with 1 finding 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 2d 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.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

- `document-collector` is purpose-built for discovering regulatory sources (WebSearch, WebFetch, Bash for curl/pdftotext). It writes to `sources/working_references.md`.
commands/backdate-program.md · 1,202 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 1,202 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Backdating $ARGUMENTS

Coordinate a multi-agent workflow to add historical date entries, fix reference quality, review formula correctness, and improve test coverage for an existing state program's parameters.

READ THE PLAN: Detailed agent prompts, lessons learned, and state-specific notes are in the memory file state-tanf-backdate-plan.md. This command is the executable orchestration layer.

GLOBAL RULE — PDF Page Numbers: Every PDF reference href MUST end with #page=XX (the file page number, NOT the printed page number). The ONLY exception is single-page PDFs. This rule applies to ALL agents in ALL phases — research, implementation, audit, and finalize. Include this instruction in every agent prompt that touches parameter YAML files.

GLOBAL RULE — Plugin Namespacing: Agent and skill names below are logical, unprefixed names. Resolve each against the session's installed components by suffix before invocation; never assume complete: or another bundle prefix. For example, country-models:issue-manager means the available agent whose name ends with that suffix.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS should contain:

  • State and program (required) — e.g., CT TFA, IN TANF, KY K-TAP
  • Target year (optional) — how far back to research, e.g., 1997. Defaults to program inception.
  • Options:
    • --skip-review — skip Phase 6 (built-in /review-program)
    • --values-only — skip reference/formula audit (Phase 2), only backdate parameter values
    • --research-only — stop after Phase 1 (research), produce impl spec but don't implement
    • --600dpi — render all PDFs at 600 DPI instead of 300 DPI (use for scanned docs, poor-quality PDFs, or dense tables that are hard to read at 300 DPI)

Examples:

/backdate-program CT TFA
/backdate-program IN TANF 2005
/backdate-program KY K-TAP --values-only
/backdate-program NE ADC --research-only
/backdate-program VA TANF --600dpi

YOUR ROLE: ORCHESTRATOR ONLY

CRITICAL — Context Window Protection:

  • You are an orchestrator. You do NOT read raw file contents, grep output, research findings, or PDF data.
  • ALL information-gathering work is delegated to agents.
  • You only read files marked "Short" in the handoff table (max 25 lines each).
  • ALL data flows through files on disk (see Phase 1 consolidation).
  • When spawning agents, point them to files on disk — do NOT paste data into prompts.

Read the full file on GitHub · 1,202 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. 2d ago First seen · 1,202 lines · 17 tokens per session scan A 0e81ca1cd71f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

backdate-program is a command published in the GitHub repository PolicyEngine/policyengine-claude (31 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 17 tokens to every session and 13,137 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.