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.
npx agentmods add skills/cdeistopened/skill-stack/cold-open-creatornpx skills add cdeistopened/skill-stack --skill cold-open-creatorgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cdeistopened/skill-stackWhat 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 | $0.00052 | $0.03646 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00026 | $0.01823 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00010 | $0.00729 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00365 |
Grade A, and why
cold-open-creator 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 419 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Podcast Cold Open Creator
Purpose
Create 25-35 second cold opens that drop listeners into a story arc - someone who wanted something, encountered obstacles, and figured something out. The cold open cuts at the tension peak, before the resolution.
Core Philosophy: The cold open is not a summary or a trailer. It's a story interrupted at the moment of maximum tension. They should finish the cold open asking "How did we get here?" and "What happens next?"
The Narrative Snippets Method (Primary Approach)
The best cold opens follow recognizable story beats. Instead of searching for "good moments," search for complete story arcs, then cut them at the right point.
The Story Beats
Every compelling story follows this pattern:
| Beat | What Happens | Cold Open Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Setup | Protagonist in their world, pursuing something | INCLUDE - establishes context |
| 2. Disaster | Something disrupts the status quo | INCLUDE - creates tension |
| 3. Failed Approach | They try the obvious solution, it backfires | INCLUDE - shows stakes |
| 4. New Insight | A realization that changes everything | TEASE or CUT HERE |
| 5. Resolution | They apply the insight, it works | CUT BEFORE THIS |
| 6. Reflection | The universal takeaway | CUT BEFORE THIS |
The Rule: Include beats 1-3 (maybe hint at 4). Cut BEFORE beats 5-6. The cold open ends with the question unresolved.
Finding Story Arcs in Transcripts
Scan for these signal phrases:
Disaster signals:
- "Then everything fell apart..."
- "I was diagnosed with..."
- "The call came and they said no..."
- "I realized I was doing it wrong..."
Failed approach signals:
- "I tried X but it didn't work..."
- "We did everything we were supposed to..."
- "Most people just accept it and move on..."
Insight signals (CUT HERE OR JUST BEFORE):
- "Then I realized..."
- "That's when it clicked..."
- "So what we do instead is..." [CUT]
- "The real reason was..." [CUT]
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.
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.
- 2d ago First seen · 419 lines · 52 tokens per session scan A 02e5aed19f75
cold-open-creator is a skill published in the GitHub repository cdeistopened/skill-stack (27 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 3,646 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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