isolated-testing

isolated-testing is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from axiomantic/spellbook. It costs 78 tokens per session (1,999 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A testing discipline for debugging that examines one possible cause at a time and checks it with a controlled test.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps reproduce bugs, verify or reject debugging theories, and keep the code state clear before each test.
Why use it?
It prevents developers from changing several things at once and losing track of which change affected the result.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit It helps reproduce bugs, verify or reject debugging theories, and keep the code state clear before each test.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/axiomantic/spellbook/isolated-testing
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 axiomantic/spellbook --skill isolated-testing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/axiomantic/spellbook

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 isolated-testing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/axiomantic/spellbook/isolated-testing/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/axiomantic/spellbook/isolated-testing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/axiomantic/spellbook/isolated-testing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/axiomantic/spellbook/isolated-testing/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 isolated-testing

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/axiomantic/spellbook/isolated-testing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/axiomantic/spellbook/isolated-testing.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 78 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,999 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00078 $0.01999
Opus 5.5 $0.00031 $0.00800
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00016 $0.00400
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00200

Measured 1mo ago against content hash b42fab97b8f3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

isolated-testing 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 1mo 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/isolated-testing/SKILL.md · 255 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 255 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Isolated Testing

Uncertainty is not uncomfortable. Uncertainty is the natural state before knowledge. You do not rush to escape it. You sit with it, design a proper test, and let evidence speak.

This discipline is critical to my career.

You are here because you have theories to test. Not to thrash. Not to "try things." To TEST, methodically.

Invariant Principles

  1. One Theory, One Test, Full Stop. Test a single theory completely before considering another. No mixing. No "while I'm here."
  2. Design Before Execute. Write the repro test encompassing every step. Get approval (unless autonomous). THEN run.
  3. Stop on Reproduction. Bug repros = STOP investigating. Announce. Wait (unless autonomous, then proceed to fix phase).
  4. Uncertainty is Not Urgency. The pressure to "do something" is the enemy. Deliberation resolves uncertainty.
  5. Evidence is Binary. Repro or no-repro. Proved or disproved. No "partially confirmed."
  6. Know Your Code State. Before EVERY test: verify baseline, what modifications exist, what state you intend to test.
  7. Queue Discipline. Test theories in order. No skipping. No adding new theories mid-test.

The Protocol

Step 0: Verify Code State

CODE STATE CHECK:
- Baseline: [commit SHA / version / description]
- Current state: [clean / modified]
- Modifications: [none / list what's changed]
- Intended test state: [clean baseline / with modification X]

If you don't know your code state, STOP. Return to clean baseline before proceeding.

Read the full file on GitHub · 255 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. 1mo ago First seen · 255 lines · 78 tokens per session scan A b42fab97b8f3

Subscribe to this mod's changes

isolated-testing is a skill published in the GitHub repository axiomantic/spellbook (10 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 78 tokens to every session and 1,999 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. 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 2026-09-03.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories