writing-plans

writing-plans is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from ChrisLamDev/hermes-core-skills. It costs 17 tokens per session (2,041 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide for writing detailed implementation plans that explain what to change, how to test it, and how to verify the result.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps break development work into small tasks, document files and commands, use test-driven development (writing tests before or alongside code), and plan verification.
Why use it?
It gives an implementer enough context to work without guessing about the codebase or the requested behavior.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions subagents; mentions Codex.

Good fit It helps break development work into small tasks, document files and commands, use test-driven development (writing tests before or alongside code), and plan verification.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/writing-plans
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 writing-plans
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 writing-plans

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

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/writing-plans"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/chrislamdev/hermes-core-skills/writing-plans.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 17 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,041 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 $0.00017 $0.02041
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.01020
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00408
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00204

Measured 9d ago against content hash 64194104f3ea, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

writing-plans 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 9d 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/writing-plans/SKILL.md · 334 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 334 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Writing Implementation Plans

Overview

Write comprehensive implementation plans assuming the implementer has zero context for the codebase and questionable taste. Document everything they need: which files to touch, complete code, testing commands, docs to check, how to verify. Give them bite-sized tasks. DRY. YAGNI. TDD. Frequent commits.

Core principle

Core principle: A good plan makes implementation obvious. If someone has to guess, the plan is incomplete.

CSO (Claude Search Optimization) — Description Rule

Critical finding from Superpowers v5.1.0 testing: If a skill's or plan's description field summarizes the workflow/process, the Agent may follow the description instead of reading the full body. This creates a shortcut that bypasses the actual content.

Rule: The description MUST ONLY describe triggering conditions (when to use), NOT what the skill/plan does or how it works.

# ❌ BAD: describes process
description: Use when implementing plans — dispatches subagent per task with code review between tasks

# ✅ GOOD: only triggering condition
description: Use when executing implementation plans with independent tasks in the current session

Why this matters: During testing, a description that said "code review between tasks" caused Claude to do ONE review, even though the skill's flowchart clearly showed TWO reviews (spec compliance then code quality). Changing the description to remove the workflow summary fixed this.

This applies to:

  • Skill SKILL.md frontmatter description
  • Plan document headers
  • Any metadata description an Agent reads before deciding to load content

When to Use

Always use before:

  • Implementing multi-step features
  • Breaking down complex requirements
  • Delegating to subagents via subagent-driven-development

Don't skip when:

  • Feature seems simple (assumptions cause bugs)
  • You plan to implement it yourself (future you needs guidance)
  • Working alone (documentation matters)

Bite-Sized Task Granularity

Read the full file on GitHub · 334 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. 9d ago First seen · 334 lines · 17 tokens per session scan A 64194104f3ea

Subscribe to this mod's changes

writing-plans is a skill published in the GitHub repository ChrisLamDev/hermes-core-skills (9 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 17 tokens to every session and 2,041 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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