Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to cas-team-analyst/team-analyst. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cas-team-analyst/team-analyst/main/.agents/skills/improve-agent/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cas-team-analyst/team-analystWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/cas-team-analyst/team-analyst/improve-agent)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/cas-team-analyst/team-analyst/improve-agent"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cas-team-analyst/team-analyst/improve-agent.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
SkillSpector: 3 findings, 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 Rogue Agent · line 3 Skill modifies its own code, configuration, or behavior at runtime. Self-modification enables an agent to escalate privileges, disable safety constraints, or install persistent backdoors.Fix: Prevent the skill from modifying its own code, SKILL.md, or configuration files. Treat skill files as read-only at runtime.
- high Rogue Agent · line 563 Skill modifies its own code, configuration, or behavior at runtime. Self-modification enables an agent to escalate privileges, disable safety constraints, or install persistent backdoors.Fix: Prevent the skill from modifying its own code, SKILL.md, or configuration files. Treat skill files as read-only at runtime.
- medium Agent Snooping · line 13 Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00059 | $0.04814 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00030 | $0.02407 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00012 | $0.00963 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00481 |
Grade A, and why
improve-agent 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 8d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 606 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Agent Improvement Guide
Quick Reference
What this skill covers: Improving GitHub Copilot Agent performance through Skills, Custom Instructions, AGENTS.md, and path-specific instructions.
Instruction types:
- Skills = On-demand, specialized (
.github/skills/NAME/SKILL.md) - Custom Instructions = Always-in-context, general (
.github/copilot-instructions.md) - Path-Specific = Context for specific files/dirs (
.github/instructions/NAME.instructions.md) - AGENTS.md = Directory-based precedence (nearest
AGENTS.mdwins)
Quick decision: Need it for 80%+ of tasks? → Custom Instructions. Specific workflows only? → Skill. Different rules per directory? → Path-specific or AGENTS.md. → Decision guide
Key principles:
- Less is more: Agents overindex on first 50 lines. Put navigation and key decisions first, details below with hash links.
- Context is costly: Only add what Copilot doesn't already know. Challenge each piece: "Does this justify its token cost?"
- Description triggers loading: The skill
descriptionfield determines when Copilot loads it. Be specific about WHEN to use. - Iterate, don't perfect: Start minimal, add details based on real usage patterns. → Iteration guide
- Match freedom to fragility: Text for flexible tasks, specific scripts for fragile operations. → Details
Setup guides:
Writing best practices:
- Writing effective skills
- Writing effective instructions
- What NOT to include
- Testing approach
- Troubleshooting
Naming: lowercase-with-hyphens, under 64 chars, verb-led (e.g., rotate-pdf, debug-github-actions)
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.
- 8d ago First seen · 606 lines · 59 tokens per session scan A 1befeb5e1e04
improve-agent is a skill published in the GitHub repository cas-team-analyst/team-analyst (11 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 59 tokens to every session and 4,814 once invoked, about $0.0003 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.
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