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/alivecontext/alive/build-extensionsnpx skills add alivecontext/alive --skill build-extensionsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alivecontext/aliveWhat 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 | $0.00060 | $0.01486 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00030 | $0.00743 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00012 | $0.00297 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00149 |
Grade A, and why
alive:build-extensions 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 3d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 204 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Extend
Build custom capabilities that integrate cleanly with the ALIVE Context System.
Not about adjusting preferences or voice (that's alive:settings). Extend is about creating NEW things — skills, rules, hooks — that make the system do something it couldn't before.
What It Builds
| Type | What it is | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Skill | Repeatable workflow with instructions | .alive/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md |
| Rule | Behavioral constraint or guide | .alive/rules/{rule-name}.md |
| Hook | Automated trigger on system events | .alive/hooks/ (scripts + hooks.json) |
| Plugin | Distributable package of skills + rules + hooks | Hands off to contributor@alivecontext |
Flow
1. Understand What the Human Wants
"I want to automatically tag emails by walnut" "Every time I save, it should update my project board" "I keep doing this manually every session — can we automate it?"
The squirrel determines: is this a skill (process), a rule (constraint), a hook (automation), or a combination?
╭─ squirrel that sounds like a hook — an automated trigger that fires on save.
│ Want me to build it?
│
│ It would:
│ - Fire after every alive:save
│ - Read the routed stash items
│ - Update your project board via API
│
│ > Build it / Tell me more / Not now
╰─
2. Check Compatibility
Before writing anything:
- Read the current plugin version from
plugin.json - Check which hook events are available (SessionStart, PreToolUse, PostToolUse, PreCompact, UserPromptSubmit)
- Verify the name doesn't collide with existing skills, rules, or hooks
- Check for rule contradictions with existing rules
3. Write to the Human's Space
NEVER write to the plugin cache. Plugin cache (~/.claude/plugins/) gets overwritten on update. Custom capabilities live in the human's own space:
- Custom skills:
$WORLD_ROOT/.alive/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md - Custom rules:
$WORLD_ROOT/.alive/rules/{rule-name}.md - Custom hooks:
$WORLD_ROOT/.alive/hooks/(scripts +.claude/hooks.jsonadditions)
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.
- 3d ago First seen · 204 lines · 60 tokens per session scan A 21dd3ed8d247
alive:build-extensions is a skill published in the GitHub repository alivecontext/alive (127 stars, last pushed 8d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 60 tokens to every session and 1,486 once invoked, about $0.0003 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.
Other skills, from other repositories
crit-cli
Use when an agent needs to author or reply to crit inline comments programmatically (including multi-agent workflows commenting on shared code/plans/docs/proposals), publish or unpublish a crit review with crit share, sync a crit review to or from a GitHub PR or GitLab MR, or read/interpret a crit review JSON file.…
crit
Review code changes, a plan, a live page (running dev server), or a local HTML file with Crit inline comments and structured human feedback. Use only when the user explicitly invokes /crit or directly asks to use Crit; a generic review request does not count.
crit-story
Author a crit story only when the user explicitly invokes /crit-story or directly asks you to generate a crit story. Do not infer this skill from generic review, PR, or diff-review requests.
cco-config
View and tune CCO's behavior thresholds — re-read warnings, cache staleness, prompt-coach length bands, and the /cco-pack budget cap.
cco-budget
Configure token budget limits, auto-compact settings, and view current budget status (model-aware — Opus 4.8 default, full 1M context at standard price).
cco-overhead
Audit the fixed context overhead every session starts with — system prompt, MCP tools, agents, CLAUDE.md, memory — measured from real transcript usage.