skill-slimming-strategy

skill-slimming-strategy is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from ChrisLamDev/hermes-core-skills. It costs 34 tokens per session (895 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide for shortening very long skill files to make them easier for coding agents to use.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps trim skill files over 2,000 words, replace copied API references with summaries, and move detailed checklists into reference files.
Why use it?
It reduces unnecessary instructions and keeps important workflows from being buried in large documents.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Which agent this was written for is unclear — built for hermes-agent. Also seen: mentions Codex; built for hermes-agent.

Good fit It helps trim skill files over 2,000 words, replace copied API references with summaries, and move detailed checklists into reference files.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/skill-slimming-strategy
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 ChrisLamDev/hermes-core-skills --skill skill-slimming-strategy
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ChrisLamDev/hermes-core-skills

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 skill-slimming-strategy

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/skill-slimming-strategy/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/skill-slimming-strategy)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/skill-slimming-strategy"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/skill-slimming-strategy/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 skill-slimming-strategy

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/skill-slimming-strategy"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/skill-slimming-strategy.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 895 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 $0.00895
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00447
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00179
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00089

Measured 10d ago against content hash ab054f707509, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

skill-slimming-strategy 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.

skills/skill-slimming-strategy/SKILL.md · 86 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 86 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Skill Slimming Strategy

When to Use

When a SKILL.md file exceeds 2000 words and needs to be made more token-efficient per Superpowers standards.

Classification First

Before slimming, classify the skill into one of these types. Each gets a different treatment:

Type A: Auto-generated API Reference Doc

Signs: Language like "Created On: Jun 06, 2025 | Last Updated On:..." or "This skill auto-generated from official documentation" Action: Replace entirely. Keep only the frontmatter + a 200-word summary with links to official docs. The original content is stale anyway — official docs are more current.

Example:

# Before: 22,733 words of copied PyTorch API docs
# After: 219 words — frontmatter + 3 bullet core concepts + 3 common tasks + links

Type B: Hand-Authored Pipeline / Flow Doc

Signs: Has step-by-step phases, checklists, decision trees. Written by a human for a specific project. Action: Extract details to reference files. Keep the decision tree / flow diagram + one-sentence-per-phase in SKILL.md. Move detailed checklists, commands, and troubleshooting to references/ files.

Example:

# Before: 14,058 words — full paper writing pipeline with all 7 phases detailed
# After: 429 words — flow diagram + phase summary table + links to reference files

Type C: External Package / Vendored Skill

Signs: Has homepage: or repository: pointing to an external GitHub project. Contains vendored Python scripts. Action: Don't touch. These are maintained by external authors. The scripts are the real content, not the SKILL.md prose.

Example: last30days — 19,231 words of scripts + instructions from mvanhorn.

Type D: Project-Specific Debug Flow

Signs: Contains real-world debugging steps learned through painful experience. Lots of "quick fix" ordering. Action: Abstract to decision tree. Keep the symptom diagnosis (Case A vs Case B) + quick-fix order in SKILL.md. Move deep-dive explanations and repair procedures to references/.

Read the full file on GitHub · 86 lines

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 · 86 lines · 34 tokens per session scan A ab054f707509

Subscribe to this mod's changes

skill-slimming-strategy is a skill published in the GitHub repository ChrisLamDev/hermes-core-skills (9 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 34 tokens to every session and 895 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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