check-skill-updates

check-skill-updates is a skill for Claude Code from adamlinscott/claude-skills. It costs 133 tokens per session (914 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A check that tells you whether this installed collection of coding-agent skills has newer versions available. It can report whether the copy is current, outdated, unsafe to update, or offline.

In plain words
What is it for?
For checking skill freshness, reporting available updates, and optionally updating or declining them when requested.
Why use it?
It avoids unknowingly using an old or unavailable skills collection and limits routine update checks to once per day.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths.

Part of the claude-skills plugin — 18 skills shipped together

Good fit For checking skill freshness, reporting available updates, and optionally updating or declining them when requested.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/adamlinscott/claude-skills/check-skill-updates
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 adamlinscott/claude-skills --skill check-skill-updates
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/adamlinscott/claude-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install claude-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 18 skills.

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 check-skill-updates

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/adamlinscott/claude-skills/check-skill-updates/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/adamlinscott/claude-skills/check-skill-updates)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/adamlinscott/claude-skills/check-skill-updates"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/adamlinscott/claude-skills/check-skill-updates/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 check-skill-updates

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/adamlinscott/claude-skills/check-skill-updates"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/adamlinscott/claude-skills/check-skill-updates.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 133 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 914 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 $0.00133 $0.00914
Opus 5 $0.00067 $0.00457
Sonnet 5 $0.00027 $0.00183
Haiku 4.5 $0.00013 $0.00091

Measured 10d ago against content hash 581c1f8f543e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

check-skill-updates 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 10d 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.

skills/check-skill-updates/SKILL.md · 66 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 66 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

check-skill-updates

Say nothing unless there is something to say. This skill exists to mention a waiting update once, at a moment when the user is not busy — and to be invisible the rest of the time.

Run it

node <repo>/tools/freshness/check.mjs

<repo> is the clone the skills are linked from. Resolve it from this file's real path, not from the working directory: ~/.claude/skills/check-skill-updates is a link, so its target's ../../tools/freshness/check.mjs is the script. The working directory is whatever the user happens to be editing, which is usually a different repo entirely.

The script prints one line of JSON and nothing else. Flags: --force (the user asked directly, ignore the rate limit), --update (pull and re-link), --decline (remember this was turned down).

What each verdict means

Verdict What you say
fresh Nothing. Silence is the correct output.
too-soon Nothing. Already checked within the day.
offline Nothing. A failed fetch is not the user's problem to hear about.
not-installed Nothing, unless the user asked directly — then say the clone could not be found.
unsafe Nothing, unless the user asked directly — then say the clone is on <branch> or has uncommitted changes, so it is not safe to pull for them.
behind One line. See below.
updated One line: what was applied. If refreshed is false, say the pull worked but the re-link did not, and name node <repo>/install.mjs --refresh.

When the user invoked this skill directly, report every verdict plainly — being asked a question is licence to answer it. When another skill called you, only behind earns any words at all.

Mentioning an update

One line, at the very end of whatever the calling skill was already saying, never in the middle:

Skills update available — 3 commits behind (feat(are-we-done): add close-out gate). Update now?

Then honour the answer:

  • Yes → run with --update, then say in one line what was applied. The pull is safe mid-session: it changes the text of skills you already have, adds and removes nothing, and anything already running finishes on the version it started with.
  • No → run with --decline and drop it. That version is never raised again, however long it sits there. Do not re-ask tomorrow; the answer has not expired.
  • No answer → drop it. An ignored offer is a no.

Read the full file on GitHub · 66 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. 10d ago First seen · 66 lines · 133 tokens per session scan A 581c1f8f543e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

check-skill-updates is a skill published in the GitHub repository adamlinscott/claude-skills (3 stars, last pushed 10d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 133 tokens to every session and 914 once invoked, about $0.0007 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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