software-cost-estimator

software-cost-estimator is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from BlackBeltTechnology/pi-agent-dashboard. It costs 170 tokens per session (2,542 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

An estimation tool that turns software requirements into an architecture outline, role-based effort estimates, uncertainty ranges, and delivery-mode comparisons.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to estimate development work for use cases and functional or non-functional requirements on a chosen technology stack, including human-only and AI-assisted delivery.
Why use it?
It makes assumptions and uncertainty visible, so planning does not depend on one unexplained time or cost figure.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Needs its repository: it runs a file that does not travel with it, so clone the repository first. The line is node bin/estimate.mjs <input.yaml> --out <dir>.

Good fit Use it to estimate development work for use cases and functional or non-functional requirements on a chosen technology stack, including human-only and AI-assisted delivery.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/BlackBeltTechnology/pi-agent-dashboard
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/blackbelttechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/software-cost-estimator

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 software-cost-estimator

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/blackbelttechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/software-cost-estimator/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/blackbelttechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/software-cost-estimator)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/blackbelttechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/software-cost-estimator"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/blackbelttechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/software-cost-estimator/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 software-cost-estimator

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/blackbelttechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/software-cost-estimator"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/blackbelttechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/software-cost-estimator.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 170 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,542 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 warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 2 findings, up to medium

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 →

  • medium Rogue Agent · line 25
    Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.
    Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
  • medium MCP Rug Pull · line 177
    npx commands without a version suffix (e.g. @1.0.0) create a rug-pull risk if the upstream server is compromised and publishes a malicious update.
    Fix: Pin the version: npx @scope/[email protected]
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 $0.00170 $0.02542
Opus 5 $0.00085 $0.01271
Sonnet 5 $0.00034 $0.00508
Haiku 4.5 $0.00017 $0.00254

Measured 10d ago against content hash 581abdae8717, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

software-cost-estimator 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.

packages/cost-estimator/.pi/skills/software-cost-estimator/SKILL.md · 201 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 201 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Software Cost Estimator

Turn requirements into a defensible number — with the workings shown.

Division of labour that makes this trustworthy: you do the judgment (decompose use cases, count transactions, rate factors, route NFRs, classify AI-suitability). A deterministic TypeScript engine does the arithmetic (UCP, COCOMO scale, role split, Monte Carlo, NPV). Never compute these by hand — you will be wrong, and the client cannot audit a number you invented.

Non-negotiable rules

  1. Never emit a single number. Always P50/P85/P95 plus the cone-of-uncertainty band. Fund to P85. Quote P50 only alongside its range.
  2. Estimate ≠ target ≠ commitment. Say which one you are producing.
  3. Never show AI savings without the review and rework lines. DORA 2025 found AI adoption raised instability even as throughput recovered. A comparison that hides this is a sales document.
  4. Route each NFR to exactly one path — derived scope or multiplier. Both is double counting; the engine warns, but you should not create the situation.
  5. Print the assumption register with every estimate. Every constant is cited or marked UNCALIBRATED in src/engine/defaults.ts.
  6. Prefer a reference class over a textbook constant.
  7. Quote the cost basis you actually pay. Metered token cost is theoretical when capacity is bought on a subscription. Report subscription leverage (meter-equivalent ÷ seat cost) as leverage, never as a saving passed to the client. Under a subscription, schedule is a cost driver and quota exhaustion is a schedule risk, not a cost overrun. Check assets/calibration/reference-classes.md before accepting the default 20 h/UCP.

Workflow

1. Gather

Ask only for what materially changes the number. If the user has a spec, read it and propose the decomposition rather than interrogating them.

Minimum viable input: a list of use cases, the actors, and the stack. Everything else has a documented default.

Read the full file on GitHub · 201 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 · 201 lines · 170 tokens per session scan A 581abdae8717

Subscribe to this mod's changes

software-cost-estimator is a skill published in the GitHub repository BlackBeltTechnology/pi-agent-dashboard (278 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 170 tokens to every session and 2,542 once invoked, about $0.0009 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.