bm-orient

bm-orient is a skill for Claude Code from basicmachines-co/basic-memory. It costs 43 tokens per session (721 once invoked), scanned B, original, AGPL-3.0.

A startup briefing from Basic Memory for substantial work in an existing repository, covering active tasks, unresolved decisions, recent checkpoints, and project conventions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Orienting an agent when resuming repository work and understanding the project's current state and working rules.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of repeating finished work or overlooking decisions made in earlier sessions.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: argument-hint in frontmatter.

Part of the basic-memory plugin — 8 skills, 2 hooks shipped together

Good fit Orienting an agent when resuming repository work and understanding the project's current state and working rules.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/basicmachines-co/basic-memory/bm-orient
About the project

Basic Memory is a local-first knowledge system that stores notes as Markdown files and connects them into a searchable knowledge graph for AI conversations. People and AI assistants use it to preserve project context across Claude, Codex, Cursor, ChatGPT, and other MCP-compatible clients. The catalogue add-ons provide Basic Memory skills, commands, instructions, MCP integrations, hooks, settings, and a plugin.

basicmachines-co/basic-memory · 4,251 stars · on GitHub · basicmemory.com

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 basicmachines-co/basic-memory --skill bm-orient
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/basicmachines-co/basic-memory

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install basic-memory, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 8 skills, 2 hooks.

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 bm-orient

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/basicmachines-co/basic-memory/bm-orient/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/basicmachines-co/basic-memory/bm-orient)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/basicmachines-co/basic-memory/bm-orient"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/basicmachines-co/basic-memory/bm-orient/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 bm-orient

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/basicmachines-co/basic-memory/bm-orient"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/basicmachines-co/basic-memory/bm-orient.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 43 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 721 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Agent Snooping · line 18
    Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.
    Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
How audits are shown
Origin unknown 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 $0.00043 $0.00721
Opus 5.5 $0.00017 $0.00288
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00009 $0.00144
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00072

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 4412bde7a85a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

bm-orient scanned grade B with 1 finding 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.

Reads agent configuration directoriesmediumAgent snooping

.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/ hold keys, settings and other credentials a mod has no legitimate need for.

it, expand `~`, or treat an empty value as unset. Use `~/.claude/settings.json`
plugins/claude-code/skills/bm-orient/SKILL.md · 61 lines

The source is not reproduced here

Licensed AGPL-3.0

The repository is licensed AGPL-3.0, which this catalogue does not treat as permission to reproduce the file. Read it at the source.

Read it on GitHub

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 Changed · +3 lines 4412bde7a85a
  2. 1mo ago First seen · 58 lines · 43 tokens per session scan B a5a7810cc13a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

bm-orient is a skill published in the GitHub repository basicmachines-co/basic-memory (4,251 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed AGPL-3.0. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 721 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (reads agent configuration directories). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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