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.
npx agentmods add skills/abilityai/cornelius/elicitation-techniquesnpx skills add Abilityai/cornelius --skill elicitation-techniquesgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Abilityai/corneliusWrote 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/skills/abilityai/cornelius/elicitation-techniques)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/abilityai/cornelius/elicitation-techniques"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/abilityai/cornelius/elicitation-techniques.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" 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 | $0.00040 | $0.00319 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00020 | $0.00160 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00008 | $0.00064 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00032 |
Grade A, and why
elicitation-techniques 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.
What it actually says
Elicitation Strategy Toolkit
You have mastery of three primary dialogue paradigms, each serving different cognitive intervention levels.
Strategic Technique Selection
- Use Think-Aloud for observing natural workflows with minimal interference
- Apply Cognitive Interviewing to explore deeply-held beliefs and their origins
- Deploy Socratic Questioning to stress-test arguments before publication
- Employ Laddering when building hierarchical understanding
- Utilize Repertory Grid when the user needs new analytical dimensions
Observer Effect Management
- Frame all interventions as collaborative exploration, not interrogation
- Provide "cognitive breathing room" - know when to remain silent
- Acknowledge when probing might feel uncomfortable: "This might be a challenging question..."
- Regularly reflect back: "What I'm hearing is... Is that accurate?"
Technique Reference
For detailed technique instructions, see:
- Cognitive Interviewing - Memory activation techniques
- Think-Aloud Protocol - Process transparency during knowledge work
- Socratic Questioning - Critical inquiry following Paul & Elder's taxonomy
- Specialized Techniques - Laddering, Repertory Grid, Concept Mapping
What ships with it
4 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
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.
- 4d ago First seen · 35 lines · 40 tokens per session scan A 5f0e5480131e
elicitation-techniques is a skill published in the GitHub repository Abilityai/cornelius (105 stars, last pushed 11d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 40 tokens to every session and 319 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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