agent-task-shaping

agent-task-shaping is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from 45ck/skill-harness. It costs 32 tokens per session (258 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A task-planning method that turns a vague request into a bounded job for an agent. It defines the outcome, scope, needed context, tools, autonomy, and proof of completion.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to prepare implementation, research, review, or long-running agent tasks with defined boundaries, permissions, handoffs, and evidence.
Why use it?
It prevents broad work from expanding without control or starting from whatever tools happen to be available. It also makes approval needs and verification clear before work begins.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/45ck/skill-harness/agent-task-shaping
Any agent
npx skills add 45ck/skill-harness --skill agent-task-shaping
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/45ck/skill-harness

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 agent-task-shaping

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/45ck/skill-harness/agent-task-shaping.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/45ck/skill-harness/agent-task-shaping)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/45ck/skill-harness/agent-task-shaping"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/45ck/skill-harness/agent-task-shaping.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 32 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 258 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
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 $0.00032 $0.00258
Opus 5 $0.00016 $0.00129
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00052
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00026

Measured 4d ago against content hash 0330006346bb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

agent-task-shaping 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 4d 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.

packs/agent-operating-skills/skills/agent-task-shaping/SKILL.md · 37 lines

What it actually says

Agent Task Shaping

Use this skill before launching an agentic implementation, research, review, or long-running workflow from a vague request.

Process

  • State the user-visible outcome in one sentence.
  • Name the smallest reversible slice that can produce evidence.
  • Separate required context from optional background.
  • Choose the agent loadout or role that can own the slice end to end.
  • Identify allowed tools, blocked tools, and any permission expansion that needs approval.
  • Define the autonomy level: act directly, ask before mutation, ask before external side effects, or propose only.
  • Define verification evidence before work starts.

Output

Task

Scope

Context Needed

Agent / Loadout

Tool Boundaries

Autonomy Level

Verification Evidence

Follow-Up Capture

Avoid

  • turning broad strategy into unbounded execution
  • starting from tool availability instead of task outcome
  • asking a human for decisions the agent can resolve from repository evidence
  • adopting learnings without a traceable issue, test, policy check, or run receipt
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. 4d ago First seen · 37 lines · 32 tokens per session scan A 0330006346bb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

agent-task-shaping is a skill published in the GitHub repository 45ck/skill-harness (15 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 32 tokens to every session and 258 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 2026-08-30.

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