idea

idea is a skill for Claude Code from 0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry. It costs 38 tokens per session (693 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A short briefing step for clarifying a vague product, workflow, BDC, or engineering idea before planning or implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create a concise idea brief and decide whether to move on to planning, while avoiding implementation at this stage.
Why use it?
It turns an unclear idea into a shared understanding of the problem, user, success signal, boundaries, and unanswered questions.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Part of the builders-dont-cry plugin — 12 skills, 10 commands, 3 agents, 5 hooks shipped together

Good fit Use it to create a concise idea brief and decide whether to move on to planning, while avoiding implementation at this stage.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/idea
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.

Any agent
npx skills add 0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry --skill idea
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install builders-dont-cry, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 12 skills, 10 commands, 3 agents, 5 hooks.

Wrote 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.

agentmods badge for idea

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/idea/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/idea)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/idea"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/idea/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for idea

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/idea"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/idea.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 38 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 693 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00038 $0.00693
Opus 5 $0.00019 $0.00347
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00139
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00069

Measured 9d ago against content hash 8527bdfca58b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

idea 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 9d 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.

core/skills/idea/SKILL.md · 65 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 65 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/idea — Clarify Before Planning

Step 0: Escape Hatch

If the user says 别走流程, 直接做, 简单点, or 不走地图, do not run /idea. Acknowledge once and do the smallest direct action.

Exception: do not bypass safety gates for destructive, secret, public-upload, deploy, database, force-push, or irreversible work.

Step 0.5: Project Goal Check

If PROJECT_GOAL.md exists in the current project root, read it before shaping the idea. If the request conflicts with current_phase, exit_criteria, or out_of_scope, stop and ask whether to update the goal or narrow the request. Do not edit PROJECT_GOAL.md automatically.

Contract

Create a one-page idea brief. Do not write an execution plan, do not edit code, and do not automatically continue to /plan.

Process

  1. Clarify the idea into:
    • Problem
    • User / Job
    • Success signal
    • Not Doing
    • Open Questions
    • Next: /plan or stop
  2. Save only if the user asks for a written brief. Use ${BDC_HOME:-$HOME/.bdc}/ideas/ for shared ideas or project docs/ideas/ when the project already has that convention.

Output

Keep the response short. The default output is the brief in chat, not a file.

Verification

  • The output includes Problem, User / Job, Success signal, Not Doing, Open Questions, and Next.
  • The output does not include implementation steps unless the user explicitly asks to continue to /plan.

Red Flags

  • The brief silently chooses scope for the owner.
  • The response creates a plan or edits files without being asked.
  • PROJECT_GOAL.md exists and was ignored.

Common Rationalizations

Rationalization Response
"The idea is clear enough; go straight to plan." Do not skip clarification when the user invoked /idea. Incident: standards/skill-frontmatter.md cites trigger misuse as a known skill failure mode; /idea exists to avoid scope assumptions before /plan.
"I should write PROJECT_GOAL.md for the owner." Do not edit it automatically. This is advisory from core/templates/PROJECT_GOAL.md: owner goals are owner-controlled.

Read the full file on GitHub · 65 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. 9d ago First seen · 65 lines · 38 tokens per session scan A 8527bdfca58b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

idea is a skill published in the GitHub repository 0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry (4 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 38 tokens to every session and 693 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-08-31.

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