Task Breakdown Specialist

Task Breakdown Specialist is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from daffy0208/ai-dev-standards. It costs 55 tokens per session (3,913 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A task-planning guide that turns large, unclear jobs into small steps designed for developers with ADHD or similar difficulties starting and organizing work.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to split work into short tasks, choose an easy starting point, improve time estimates, and maintain momentum.
Why use it?
It reduces the mental effort of beginning a task and makes progress easier to see when a project feels overwhelming.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to split work into short tasks, choose an easy starting point, improve time estimates, and maintain momentum.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards/task-breakdown-specialist
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 daffy0208/ai-dev-standards --skill task-breakdown-specialist
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards

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 Task Breakdown Specialist

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards/task-breakdown-specialist/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards/task-breakdown-specialist)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards/task-breakdown-specialist"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards/task-breakdown-specialist/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 Task Breakdown Specialist

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards/task-breakdown-specialist"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/daffy0208/ai-dev-standards/task-breakdown-specialist.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 55 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,913 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 $0.00055 $0.03913
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.01956
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00783
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00391

Measured 8d ago against content hash de067041e79a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Task Breakdown Specialist 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.

skills/task-breakdown-specialist/SKILL.md · 668 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 668 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Task Breakdown Specialist

Lower activation energy. Build momentum. Make progress visible.

Core Principle

ADHD brains struggle with large, ambiguous tasks due to high activation energy. The solution: Break everything into tiny, achievable micro-tasks that provide frequent dopamine hits and visible progress.

Key Insight: Starting is the hardest part. Make starting ridiculously easy.


The ADHD Task Problem

Problem 1: Activation Energy

Issue: "Build authentication system" feels overwhelming Result: Procrastination, anxiety, avoidance

Problem 2: Time Blindness

Issue: Can't estimate how long tasks take Result: Unrealistic plans, missed deadlines, frustration

Problem 3: Working Memory

Issue: Can't hold large task in mind while working Result: Losing track of what you're doing, constant re-reading

Problem 4: Dopamine Deficit

Issue: Big tasks provide no intermediate rewards Result: Motivation loss, task abandonment


Phase 1: Quick Win Strategy

Start with 2-Minute Tasks

Why: Zero activation energy, instant dopamine, builds momentum

❌ Bad Task: "Build user authentication"

- Feels huge (overwhelm)
- Unclear start point (paralysis)
- No quick wins (no dopamine)

✅ Good Breakdown:

Quick Wins (Build Momentum) ⚡

1. [ ] Create /auth folder (30 sec) 🟢
2. [ ] Create auth.ts file (30 sec) 🟢
3. [ ] Install bcrypt package (1 min) 🟢

WHY START HERE:

- Combined: 2 minutes total
- Zero thinking required
- 3 quick dopamine hits
- Momentum established

THEN move to real work...

The 2-5-15-30 Pattern

Break tasks into time categories:

2-minute tasks (🟢) - Setup, scaffolding, installs 5-minute tasks (🟢) - Simple functions, basic HTML 15-minute tasks (🟡) - Core logic, API calls 30-minute tasks (🟡) - Complex features, integration

Rule: Always start with 2-minute tasks!


Phase 2: The Breakdown Formula

Step 1: Capture the Big Task

Write down the overwhelming task:

Read the full file on GitHub · 668 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 668 lines · 55 tokens per session scan A de067041e79a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Task Breakdown Specialist is a skill published in the GitHub repository daffy0208/ai-dev-standards (36 stars, last pushed 8mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 55 tokens to every session and 3,913 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 2026-09-03.