What is intent-layer?

A system of AGENTS.md files that records how a codebase is organised and how work should be done in different folders. These files give coding agents relevant project context.

Use it to initialise or maintain project guidance, add folder-specific instructions, choose between AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md, and check that the documentation stays focused.

It reduces the time agents spend guessing where things belong and helps them follow local conventions in large or complex projects.

intent-layer — Skill for Claude Code by crafter-station/skills

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 crafter-station/skills --skill intent-layer

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/crafter-station/skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install stable, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 4 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/crafter-station/skills/intent-layer/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/crafter-station/skills/intent-layer)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/crafter-station/skills/intent-layer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/crafter-station/skills/intent-layer/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/crafter-station/skills/intent-layer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/crafter-station/skills/intent-layer.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 61 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 594 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. Third-party audits

Socket pass 15 Sept 2026
Snyk pass 15 Sept 2026
NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026

How audits are shown

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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00061	$0.00594
Opus 5.5	$0.00024	$0.00238
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00012	$0.00119
Haiku 4.5	$0.00006	$0.00059

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 3c162d349c3d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

intent-layer 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 2mo ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 3 executable files (scripts/analyze_structure.sh, scripts/detect_state.sh, scripts/estimate_tokens.sh), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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/intent-layer/SKILL.md · 80 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 80 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Intent Layer

Hierarchical AGENTS.md infrastructure so agents navigate codebases like senior engineers.

Core Principle

Only ONE root context file. CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md should NOT coexist at project root. Child AGENTS.md in subdirectories are encouraged for complex subsystems.

Workflow

1. Detect state
   scripts/detect_state.sh /path/to/project
   → Returns: none | partial | complete

2. Route
   none/partial → Initial setup (steps 3-5)
   complete     → Maintenance (step 6)

3. Measure [gate - show table first]
   scripts/analyze_structure.sh /path/to/project
   scripts/estimate_tokens.sh /path/to/each/source/dir

4. Decide
   No root file  → Ask: CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md?
   Has root file → Add Intent Layer section + child nodes if needed

5. Execute
   Use references/templates.md for structure
   Use references/node-examples.md for real-world patterns
   Validate: one root, READ-FIRST directive, <4k tokens per node

6. Maintenance mode (when state=complete)
   Ask user:
   a) Audit nodes     → Use references/capture-protocol.md for SME questions
   b) Find candidates → Re-measure tokens, suggest new nodes
   c) Both

When to Create Child Nodes

Signal	Action
>20k tokens in directory	Create AGENTS.md
Responsibility shift	Create AGENTS.md
Hidden contracts/invariants	Document in nearest ancestor
Cross-cutting concern	Place at LCA

Do NOT create for: every directory, simple utilities, test folders (unless complex).

Capture Questions

When documenting existing code, ask:

What does this area own? What's out of scope?
What invariants must never be violated?
What repeatedly confuses new engineers?
What patterns should always be followed?

Resources

Scripts:

scripts/detect_state.sh - Check Intent Layer state (none/partial/complete)
scripts/analyze_structure.sh - Find semantic boundaries
scripts/estimate_tokens.sh - Measure directory complexity

References:

references/templates.md - Root and child node templates
references/node-examples.md - Real-world examples
references/capture-protocol.md - SME interview protocol

Read the full file on GitHub · 80 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 files 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.

2mo ago First seen · 80 lines · 61 tokens per session scan A 3c162d349c3d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

intent-layer is a skill published in the GitHub repository crafter-station/skills (114 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 61 tokens to every session and 594 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.

Building agents Planning

intent-layer next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
intent-layercrafter-station/skills	Skill	114	2mo ago	MIT	A	61	Claude Code
imagegenopenai/codex	Skill	134k	today	Apache-2.0	A	113	Codex
playwright-climicrosoft/playwright	Skill	99k	today	Apache-2.0	A	19	Claude Code
local-ai-agentsmicrosoft/ai-agents-for-beginners	Skill	79k	today	MIT	A	200	Claude Code, Codex
systematic-debuggingobra/superpowers	Skill	314k	3d ago	MIT	A	21	Claude Code
next-cache-components-adoptionvercel/next.js	Skill	143k	today	MIT	A	95	Claude Code
next-partial-prefetching-adoptionvercel/next.js	Skill	143k	today	MIT	A	103	Claude Code