eli5-di10

eli5-di10 is a skill for Claude Code from abstractonion/cadence. It costs 86 tokens per session (660 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A skill that turns on a very short, analogy-first explanation when the user asks for ELI5, a ten-second explanation, or a similar compression. ELI5 means “explain like I’m five.”

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for explicitly requested quick explanations, summaries, or follow-up requests for the same compressed style. It limits the response length and keeps the answer focused on one next action.
Why use it?
It prevents an intentionally brief request from turning into a long explanation or a list of choices.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the cadence plugin — 38 skills, 15 commands, 5 agents shipped together

Good fit Use it for explicitly requested quick explanations, summaries, or follow-up requests for the same compressed style. It limits the response length and keeps the answer focused on one next action.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/abstractonion/cadence/eli5-di10
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 abstractonion/cadence --skill eli5-di10
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/abstractonion/cadence

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install cadence, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 38 skills, 15 commands, 5 agents.

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 eli5-di10

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/abstractonion/cadence/eli5-di10/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/abstractonion/cadence/eli5-di10)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/abstractonion/cadence/eli5-di10"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/abstractonion/cadence/eli5-di10/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 eli5-di10

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/abstractonion/cadence/eli5-di10"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/abstractonion/cadence/eli5-di10.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 86 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 660 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 $0.00086 $0.00660
Opus 5 $0.00043 $0.00330
Sonnet 5 $0.00017 $0.00132
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00066

Measured 9d ago against content hash 8bc256aea160, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

eli5-di10 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.

plugins/cadence/skills/eli5-di10/SKILL.md · 34 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 34 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

ELI5 / die-in-10 compression

Do not self-trigger. Do not offer compression when the user seems lost, confused, or overwhelmed. Do not proactively suggest /tldr. Only enter compression mode when the user explicitly uses one of the trigger phrases above (including invoking /tldr this turn) or says "in similar fashion" as a follow-up after they already invoked compression.

When compression triggers fire, switch to compression mode. Deliver understanding, not a decision menu. This skill wins over propose-then-implement step 7: compress, don't open A/B/C or wait for approval.

Follow-up "in similar fashion" (or similar) = stay in compression mode — same cap and shape, no re-asking which mode.

How to answer

  1. Analogy first. Open with one concrete comparison a non-expert would recognize ("It's like…"). Then state the actual point in plain language.
  2. Hard cap. At most 8–10 short lines, roughly 150 words total. One idea per line; cut qualifiers and caveats unless safety-critical.
  3. No clutter. No tables, bullet forests, file paths, identifiers, or code unless the user explicitly asked for them. Jargon only if you define it in the same breath.
  4. One next action. If a natural follow-up exists (run a test, pick a direction, paste a log), end with a single sentence naming it. Do not list multiple branches or reopen proposal mode.
  5. Optional sign-off. When it fits naturally, end with a crisp closer — e.g. one-line "that's it" plus a single next step. Tasteful, not mandatory every turn.
  6. Stay in lane. Compression mode does not authorize edits, commits, or tool runs by itself unless the user clearly authorized execution.

When this applies vs propose-then-implement

  • Compression (this skill): user explicitly asked — ELI5, die in 10, 10 seconds to live, /tldr, or "in similar fashion" after prior compression.
  • Plain English without meme phrases: use propose-then-implement step 7 (2–4 sentences in propose context) — not this skill.
  • Propose: they want choices before work — "how should we fix this?", "what are our options?", /propose.

Read the full file on GitHub · 34 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 · 34 lines · 86 tokens per session scan A 8bc256aea160

Subscribe to this mod's changes

eli5-di10 is a skill published in the GitHub repository abstractonion/cadence (4 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 86 tokens to every session and 660 once invoked, about $0.0004 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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