Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to surendranb/writing-skills. 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/surendranb/writing-skills/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/surendranb/writing-skillsWrote 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/surendranb/writing-skills/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/surendranb/writing-skills/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/surendranb/writing-skills/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/surendranb/writing-skills/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/surendranb/writing-skills/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 | $0.00513 | $0.00513 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00205 | $0.00205 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00103 | $0.00103 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00051 | $0.00051 |
Grade A, and why
writing-skills 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 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 — 51 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
AGENTS.md — writing-skills
Repo map and contracts for agents working in this repository.
What this is
16 writing-style skills as SKILL.md files: 9 frameworks (measurable
standards with hard checks) and 7 voices (character registers with
mechanical rules). Pure text — this repo contains skills and their packaging,
nothing else.
Layout
skills/<name>/SKILL.md one skill per folder; frontmatter name == folder name
.claude-plugin/ Claude Code marketplace + plugin manifests
plugin.json Agent Plugins 1.0 manifest (Codex, Kiro, ...)
package.json / pyproject.toml npm / PyPI packaging (plugin.json + skills/ only)
template/SKILL.md skeleton for new skills
scripts/validate_skills.py the CI gate — run it before any commit
The skill anatomy contract (enforced by CI)
- Frontmatter:
namematching the folder;description>= 80 chars containing "Use when" with concrete trigger phrases. ## The core rule— one bolded sentence that IS the skill, plus a workflow line.## Mechanics— numbered, each one verifiable (a cap, a ban list, a ratio).## Verify— the checklist an agent must pass before delivering.## Do not— the anti-patterns.- At least two before/after transform examples.
- Total length <= 120 lines.
Framework skills must cite the real standard and match it — verify rules against the source, not memory. Fidelity errors are bugs.
Working here
- Validate after any change:
python3 scripts/validate_skills.py - New skill: copy
template/SKILL.mdintoskills/<name>/, fill it, add the path to.claude-plugin/marketplace.json, validate. - Keep this repo skills-only: no servers, no scripts beyond the validator, no config that runs anything on install.
Releases
Every skill addition or plugin improvement = a release: bump the version in
plugin.json, .claude-plugin/plugin.json, .claude-plugin/marketplace.json
(metadata.version), package.json, pyproject.toml (CI fails on mismatch);
add a CHANGELOG entry; tag vX.Y.Z + GitHub release; npm publish manually.
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 Changed 61051ebacdfb
- 2mo ago First seen · 51 lines · 513 tokens per session scan A e59aebaf0f2e
writing-skills AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository surendranb/writing-skills (53 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 513 tokens to every session, about $0.0021 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.
writing-skills AGENTS.md compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| writing-skills AGENTS.mdsurendranb/writing-skills | Instructions file | 53 | 2mo ago | MIT | A | 513 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | yesterday | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | yesterday | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 274k | 2d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |