break-big-questions-into-steps

break-big-questions-into-steps is a skill for Claude Code from alivirgo/Major-AI-Skills. It costs 24 tokens per session (1,039 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A method for splitting a large AI coding request into small, ordered steps that can be checked as work progresses.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan and build multi-part applications through smaller milestones, such as defining the architecture before implementing features.
Why use it?
It reduces truncated output, skipped error handling, invented dependencies, and cascading mistakes caused by asking for an entire complex project at once.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: mentions Codex.

Part of the major-ai-skills plugin — 147 skills, 8 plugins shipped together

Good fit Use it to plan and build multi-part applications through smaller milestones, such as defining the architecture before implementing features.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/alivirgo/major-ai-skills/break-big-questions-into-steps
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 alivirgo/Major-AI-Skills --skill break-big-questions-into-steps
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alivirgo/Major-AI-Skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install major-ai-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 147 skills, 8 plugins.

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 break-big-questions-into-steps

README.md
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Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alivirgo/major-ai-skills/break-big-questions-into-steps"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alivirgo/major-ai-skills/break-big-questions-into-steps/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 break-big-questions-into-steps

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alivirgo/major-ai-skills/break-big-questions-into-steps"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alivirgo/major-ai-skills/break-big-questions-into-steps.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 24 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,039 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 $0.00024 $0.01039
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00519
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00208
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00104

Measured yesterday against content hash a62770eeeb87, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

break-big-questions-into-steps 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 yesterday.

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/break-big-questions-into-steps/SKILL.md · 107 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 107 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Break Big Questions Into Step-Wise Milestones (AI Skill)

Overview

Asking an AI to execute a massive monolithic request in a single prompt ("Write a complete multi-tenant SaaS application with Stripe billing, PostgreSQL, and React") causes context saturation. The model quickly runs out of output tokens, truncates code, skips critical error handling, and hallucinates dependencies.

The Step-Wise Milestone Decomposition Framework breaks overwhelming projects into sequential, verified atomic phases - ensuring maximum code quality, architectural coherence, and total human control.


Monolithic Megaprompt vs. Milestone Execution

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                 Monolithic vs. Step-Wise Flow               │
│                                                             │
│  Monolithic Prompt ("Build the entire app now"):            │
│  • Token exhaustion $\rightarrow$ truncated code files      │
│  • Skipped error handling and placeholder comments          │
│  • If a bug occurs at step 1, the entire app fails          │
│                                                             │
│  Step-Wise Execution (3-Milestone Gate):                    │
│  Phase 1: Architecture & Data Schema (Review & Approve)     │
│       │                                                     │
│  Phase 2: Core Backend Logic & API Routes (Test & Validate) │
│       │                                                     │
│  Phase 3: Frontend Integration & UI State (Polish)          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Master Step-Wise Prompt Templates

Pattern 1: The Milestone Roadmapper

Use this at the very beginning of any large project:

I want to build / create [MASSIVE PROJECT].

Do NOT start generating the final code or content yet.
Step 1: Break this entire project down into 3 to 4 sequential, self-contained milestones.
For each milestone, define:
- Objective
- Deliverable
- Definition of Done (how we verify it works before moving to the next milestone)

Conclude by asking for my approval on Milestone 1.

Read the full file on GitHub · 107 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. yesterday Changed · -9 tokens per session a62770eeeb87
  2. 7d ago First seen · 107 lines · 33 tokens per session scan A c22b61ddb545

Subscribe to this mod's changes

break-big-questions-into-steps is a skill published in the GitHub repository alivirgo/Major-AI-Skills (1 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 24 tokens to every session and 1,039 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-09-05.