skills CLAUDE.md

Repository instructions for posit-dev/skills, a collection of Markdown files that teach Claude specialized development workflows. They explain the repository layout and its token-counting utility.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when editing or reviewing skills in that repository, especially when checking Markdown line and token limits.
Why use it?
They help an agent understand that the repository contains reusable instructions rather than application code, and show how to check their size.

Instructions file

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 instructions/posit-dev/skills/claude-md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/posit-dev/skills
Per session 856 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 856 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
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 $0.00856 $0.00856
Opus 5 $0.00428 $0.00428
Sonnet 5 $0.00171 $0.00171
Haiku 4.5 $0.00086 $0.00086

Measured 3d ago against content hash b92fd0f7bd0f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

skills CLAUDE.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 3d 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.md · 88 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 88 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

What This Repository Is

A collection of Claude Skills published by Posit PBC. Skills are structured markdown files that teach Claude specialized workflows (e.g., Shiny app development, R package testing, GitHub PR workflows). There is no application code to build, compile, or deploy — the primary artifacts are Markdown files consumed directly by Claude's skill system.

Utility Script

The only runnable utility is count-skill-tokens.py, which reports line and token counts for a skill:

# Requires uv
./count-skill-tokens.py shiny/shiny-bslib
# or
uv run count-skill-tokens.py r-lib/cli

Warns when SKILL.md exceeds 5,000 tokens / 500 lines, or when the skill description frontmatter exceeds 100 tokens.

Directory Structure

<category>/
  README.md                   # Category-level notes (optional per skill)
  <skill-name>/
    SKILL.md                  # Required: skill definition with YAML frontmatter
    references/               # Optional: supplementary docs loaded on demand
      *.md
    scripts/                  # Optional: R or shell helpers
    templates/                # Optional: document templates

Do not create a README.md inside individual skill directories — documentation about a skill's design goes in the category README.

SKILL.md Format

Every skill requires YAML frontmatter at minimum:

---
name: your-skill-name        # kebab-case, matches directory name
description: >               # Claude reads this to decide when to activate the skill
  Clear description of what this skill does and when to trigger it.
  Keep under 100 tokens.
---

The body is instructions written for Claude, not end users — imperative, step-by-step, covering edge cases.

Registering a New Skill

After creating the skill directory, add it to the appropriate plugin in .claude-plugin/marketplace.json:

Read the full file on GitHub · 88 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. 3d ago First seen · 88 lines · 856 tokens per session scan A b92fd0f7bd0f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

skills CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository posit-dev/skills (488 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 856 tokens to every session, about $0.0043 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.

Related

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).

microsoft/vscode · 6,785 tokens

spec-kit AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md instructions for github/spec-kit, covering agents.md, about spec kit and specify, quickstart — add a new integration in 5 steps, integration architecture and integrationmanifest — file tracking.

github/spec-kit · 7,104 tokens

codex AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md instructions for openai/codex, covering rust/codex-rs, the codex-core crate, code review rules, crate api surface and model visible context.

openai/codex · 5,182 tokens

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.

langchain-ai/langchain · 4,345 tokens

vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.md

Instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code oss third-party-notices pipeline, architecture, pipeline flow in ci, applying the notice (cutover) and fallback chain (never fail the build).

microsoft/vscode · 5,001 tokens

next.js AGENTS.md

Instructions for vercel/next.js, covering next.js development guide, codebase structure, monorepo overview, core package: packages/next and other important packages.

vercel/next.js · 7,296 tokens