init

A setup command that creates a PARA-Programming project structure, including folders for context, plans, summaries, archives, and servers. PARA is a way to organize work into Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create project guidance files, initialize the context folders, and add the worktree directory to .gitignore.
Why use it?
It gives a new project a consistent place for working notes and instructions, reducing setup work and keeping temporary worktrees out of version control.

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/brian-lai/para-programming-plugin/init
Any agent
npx skills add brian-lai/para-programming-plugin --skill init
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/brian-lai/para-programming-plugin

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 11 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 586 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 $0.00011 $0.00586
Opus 5 $0.00005 $0.00293
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00117
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00059

Measured 2d ago against content hash a43a3753fd7e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

init 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 2d 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/init/SKILL.md · 76 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 76 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Initialize PARA-Programming structure in the current project.

Usage

/para:init
/para:init --template=basic    # Minimal project CLAUDE.md (default)
/para:init --template=full     # Comprehensive project CLAUDE.md

What It Does

  1. Set up global methodology file at ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (copied from resources/CLAUDE.md if missing; never overwrites existing)
  2. Create context directory structure:
    mkdir -p context/{data,plans,summaries,archives,servers}
    
  3. Create context/context.md seeded from context-template.md:
    # Current Work Summary
    
    Ready to start first task.
    
    ---
    ```json
    {
      "active_context": [],
      "completed_summaries": [],
      "last_updated": "TIMESTAMP"
    }
    ```
    
    See context-schema.md for the full field reference.
  4. Create project CLAUDE.md (if missing) from claude-basic-template.md (default, --template=basic) or claude-full-template.md (--template=full)
  5. Update .gitignore to include .para-worktrees/:
    • If .gitignore exists, check for .para-worktrees/ entry; append if missing
    • If .gitignore does not exist, create it with .para-worktrees/ as its content
    • This prevents worktree directories from being tracked by git

Success Output

After initialization, display:

PARA-Programming Structure Initialized

context/
├── archives/     # Historical context snapshots
├── data/         # Input files, payloads, datasets
├── plans/        # Pre-work planning documents
├── servers/      # MCP tool wrappers
├── summaries/    # Post-work reports
└── context.md    # Active session context

.para-worktrees/  # Git worktree isolation (gitignored)

Files created/updated:
- ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (global methodology, if it didn't exist)
- context/context.md (fresh context file)
- CLAUDE.md (project-specific context, if it didn't exist)
- .gitignore (added .para-worktrees/ entry)

Next steps:
1. Edit CLAUDE.md with your project-specific context
2. Create your first plan: /para:plan <task-description>
3. Check status: /para:status
4. Get help: /para:help

Read the full file on GitHub · 76 lines

Files

What ships with it

4 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 2d ago First seen · 76 lines · 11 tokens per session scan A a43a3753fd7e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

init is a skill published in the GitHub repository brian-lai/para-programming-plugin (7 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 11 tokens to every session and 586 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.

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