moss-frontmatter

moss-frontmatter is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from brsbl/moss-skills. It costs 34 tokens per session (407 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A set of YAML frontmatter rules for Moss notes. Frontmatter is an optional metadata block placed before a note's main heading.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps create and edit Moss note metadata such as status, tags, people, and type. It also guides safe handling of existing dates, unknown fields, and nested values.
Why use it?
It prevents note metadata from being lost, overwritten, or placed in the wrong format. It also clarifies when metadata should be omitted or preserved.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for Claude Code and Codex: shipped in a Claude Code plugin, but also agents/openai.yaml present.

Part of the moss-skills plugin — 8 skills shipped together

Good fit It helps create and edit Moss note metadata such as status, tags, people, and type. It also guides safe handling of existing dates, unknown fields, and nested values.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/brsbl/moss-skills/moss-frontmatter
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 brsbl/moss-skills --skill moss-frontmatter
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/brsbl/moss-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install moss-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 8 skills.

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 moss-frontmatter

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

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/brsbl/moss-skills/moss-frontmatter"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/brsbl/moss-skills/moss-frontmatter.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 34 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 407 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.
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 $0.00034 $0.00407
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00204
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00081
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00041

Measured 10d ago against content hash 37d07dfce291, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

moss-frontmatter 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.

plugins/moss-skills/skills/moss-frontmatter/SKILL.md · 45 lines

What it actually says

Moss Frontmatter

Frontmatter is an optional top-level YAML mapping before the note's H1.

---
status: active
tags:
  - project
people:
  - jane
---

# Note Title

Authoring Contract

  • Use frontmatter for structured fields that help search, filtering, grouping, or retrieval.
  • Prefer scalars and lists of strings. Moss parses nested arrays and objects but displays them read-only; preserve them unless the task explicitly requests a filesystem edit to that structure.
  • type and status are workspace vocabularies, not fixed enums. Reuse values already present in the workspace when possible.
  • Common fields are type, people, description, tags, and status; unknown fields are valid and must be preserved.
  • For workspace notes under ~/Moss/Notes/, preserve existing created_date and let Moss set it for new notes. Do not invent or overwrite it.
  • The note title comes from the leading H1, not a title field.
  • Do not duplicate metadata as body headings or bold labels.
  • Omit frontmatter when the note has no useful metadata.

Editing And Recovery

Filesystem writers may edit any field the task explicitly targets, including a nested value, while preserving unrelated keys. The Moss Properties UI edits supported scalar/list fields and treats nested values as read-only.

Keep YAML valid and retain the top-level mapping. If existing frontmatter is malformed, preserve it unless the user asks for repair; Moss retains malformed YAML but cannot edit it through Properties.

Final Check

  • Frontmatter is the first block and closes before the H1.
  • YAML is a top-level mapping.
  • Unknown and unrelated fields remain intact.
  • Workspace-managed created_date was not invented or overwritten.
Files

What ships with it

1 file 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. 10d ago First seen · 45 lines · 34 tokens per session scan A 37d07dfce291

Subscribe to this mod's changes

moss-frontmatter is a skill published in the GitHub repository brsbl/moss-skills (11 stars, last pushed 16d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 34 tokens to every session and 407 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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