explain-error

explain-error is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Brattlof/skillet. It costs 16 tokens per session (155 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A troubleshooting skill that explains error messages, stack traces, and failed build output in plain language.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to identify the failing file and line, understand what went wrong, and choose one or two concrete fixes or next checks.
Why use it?
It separates the original failure from follow-up errors and focuses attention on the likely root cause.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/brattlof/skillet/explain-error
Any agent
npx skills add Brattlof/skillet --skill explain-error
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Brattlof/skillet

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 explain-error

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/brattlof/skillet/explain-error.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/brattlof/skillet/explain-error)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/brattlof/skillet/explain-error"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/brattlof/skillet/explain-error.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 16 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 155 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00016 $0.00155
Opus 5 $0.00008 $0.00077
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00031
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00015

Measured 4d ago against content hash d73948821ed4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

explain-error 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 4d 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.

examples/explain-error/SKILL.md · 18 lines

What it actually says

explain-error

Use this when the user pastes an error, a stack trace, or failing build output.

  1. Find the actual failure: the first real error, not the cascade of messages after it.
  2. Explain in plain language what it means and the most likely cause.
  3. Point at the specific file and line when the trace gives one.
  4. Suggest one or two concrete fixes, with the exact change to make.
  5. If the cause is ambiguous, say what to check or run next to narrow it down.

Prefer the smallest fix that addresses the root cause over a workaround, and say so when you are guessing rather than certain.

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. 4d ago First seen · 18 lines · 16 tokens per session scan A d73948821ed4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

explain-error is a skill published in the GitHub repository Brattlof/skillet (8 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 16 tokens to every session and 155 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 2026-08-31.