Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to agidesigner/five-step-method-skill. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agidesigner/five-step-method-skill/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/agidesigner/five-step-method-skillWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/agidesigner/five-step-method-skill/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/agidesigner/five-step-method-skill/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/agidesigner/five-step-method-skill/agents-md/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/agidesigner/five-step-method-skill/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/agidesigner/five-step-method-skill/agents-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.02674 | $0.02674 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.01070 | $0.01070 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00535 | $0.00535 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00267 | $0.00267 |
Grade A, and why
five-step-method 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 2mo 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 213 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Five-Step Work Method
A universal decision framework that teaches you to evaluate whether to act before deciding how to act. Apply this to any decision — code, product, strategy, process, hiring, meetings, or resource allocation.
When to Apply
| Trigger | Action |
|---|---|
| New feature / product request | Must apply — Question need before designing |
| External feedback (multiple points) | Must apply — Evaluate each point independently |
| Bug fix that requires > 10 lines | Must apply — Question if the fix adds complexity |
| Process / workflow change proposal | Must apply — Can we delete the process instead? |
| New tool / vendor / hire decision | Must apply — Is the role/tool actually needed? |
| Meeting or review request | Must apply — Can this be an async message? |
| Strategy / roadmap planning | Must apply — Delete low-impact items first |
| Configuration / deployment issue | Must apply — Ask if code change is even needed |
| Single-line typo or obvious fix | Skip — Just fix it |
| User gives explicit instructions | Skip — Follow instructions, then review |
The Five Steps
Step 1: Question the Requirement
Ask: "Is this actually needed? What happens if we don't do it?"
- Challenge every request, including your own instincts
- Check if the problem solves itself (e.g., agent self-corrects after retry)
- Distinguish "nice to have" from "actually broken"
- Ask who benefits and how often
- If only one user hit it once, it's probably not a product problem
Decision matrix:
| Frequency | Impact | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Common + High | Do it | Proceed to Step 2 |
| Common + Low | Maybe | Proceed to Step 2 |
| Rare + High | Record | Log for later, don't code now |
| Rare + Low | Skip | Don't do it |
Step 2: Delete
Remove what shouldn't exist before adding anything.
- Delete the feature, code, or process that created the problem
- Delete options when a sensible default works
- Delete fallbacks when the primary path is reliable
- Delete auto-detection when one config line suffices
- Delete backwards-compatibility shims for things nobody uses
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.
- 2mo ago First seen · 213 lines · 2,674 tokens per session scan A e4b3476b9a86
five-step-method is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository agidesigner/five-step-method-skill (21 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 2,674 tokens to every session, about $0.0107 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.
five-step-method compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| five-step-methodagidesigner/five-step-method-skill | Instructions file | 21 | 7mo ago | MIT | A | 2,674 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | today | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | today | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | today | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | today | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | today | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 275k | 3d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |