Sample Agent Skills for Builders is a collection of reusable skills that extend AI coding agents with AWS, CDK, security, testing, and engineering workflows. Developers can install the skills for practical AWS development tasks or use the repository as a model for creating their own agent skills. The catalogue entries are skills and instructions from this collection.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders. 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/aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-buildersWrote 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/aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders/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/aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders/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 | $0.00919 | $0.00919 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00368 | $0.00368 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00184 | $0.00184 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00092 | $0.00092 |
Grade A, and why
sample-agent-skills-for-builders AGENTS.md 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 1mo 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 — 154 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
AGENTS.md
This file provides guidance to AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.) when working with code in this repository.
Repository Overview
A collection of sample skills for AI coding agents. Skills are packaged instructions and scripts that extend agent capabilities. This repository follows the Agent Skills format.
Creating a New Skill
Directory Structure
skills/
{skill-name}/ # kebab-case directory name
SKILL.md # Required: skill definition with frontmatter
metadata.json # Optional: extended metadata
references/ # Optional: supporting documentation
scripts/ # Optional: executable scripts
Naming Conventions
- Skill directory:
kebab-case(e.g.,my-awesome-skill,code-reviewer) - SKILL.md: Always uppercase, always this exact filename
- Scripts:
kebab-case.sh(e.g.,deploy.sh,validate.sh)
SKILL.md Format
Every skill MUST have a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter:
---
name: {skill-name}
description: {One sentence describing when to use this skill. Include trigger phrases like "Deploy my app", "Review this code", etc.}
license: MIT
metadata:
author: {author-name}
version: "1.0.0"
---
# {Skill Title}
{Brief description of what the skill does.}
## When to Apply
Reference this skill when:
- {Condition 1}
- {Condition 2}
- {Condition 3}
## How It Works
1. {Step 1}
2. {Step 2}
3. {Step 3}
## Usage
{Show examples with code blocks}
## References
- {Link to documentation}
- {Link to related resources}
Required Frontmatter Fields
| Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
name |
Yes | Unique identifier in kebab-case |
description |
Yes | One sentence with trigger phrases for discovery |
license |
No | Defaults to repository license (MIT) |
metadata |
No | Extended metadata object |
Best Practices for Context Efficiency
Skills are loaded on demand. Only the skill name and description are loaded at startup. The full SKILL.md loads into context only when the agent decides the skill is relevant.
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 154 lines · 919 tokens per session scan A ef28dd7824de
sample-agent-skills-for-builders AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository aws-samples/sample-agent-skills-for-builders (53 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 919 tokens to every session, about $0.0037 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.
Other instructions, from other repositories
vscode buildNext.instructions.md
Working notes and architecture documentation for the new esbuild-based build system in build/next. Use when making changes to the new build pipeline (transpile/bundle commands, NLS plugin, source-map handling, resource copying, or self-hosting watch tasks).
next.js AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for vercel/next.js, covering next.js development guide, codebase structure, monorepo overview, core package: packages/next and other important packages.
vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.md
Instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code oss third-party-notices pipeline, architecture, pipeline flow in ci, cache eligibility and rollout and applying the notice (cutover).
langchain AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for langchain-ai/langchain, covering global development guidelines for the langchain monorepo, corridor security analysis, project architecture and context, monorepo structure and development tools & commands.
vscode copilot-instructions.md
Copilot instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code copilot instructions, project overview, root folders, core architecture (src/ folder) and built-in extensions (extensions/ folder).
deepseek-harness AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness, covering agents.md, pre-stable apis and released session data, repository layout, commands and host sandbox failures.