always-init

A task-initialization skill that loads personal context, such as contacts, preferences, security rules, and response instructions, before handling a request.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps an agent prepare context for every request, including technical preferences, security handling, formatting, personalization, and agent routing.
Why use it?
It reduces mistakes caused by missing personal settings or operating rules. It is intended to keep responses consistent with the user's stored context.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/danielmiessler/paiplugin/always-init
Any agent
npx skills add danielmiessler/PAIPlugin --skill always-init
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/danielmiessler/PAIPlugin

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 41 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 740 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00041 $0.00740
Opus 5 $0.00020 $0.00370
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00148
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00074

Measured 2d ago against content hash d2121909cbd1, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

always-init 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.

skills/always-init/SKILL.md · 99 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 99 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

ALWAYS-INIT - Universal Task Initializer


⚠️ CRITICAL SYSTEM REQUIREMENT ⚠️

AUTOMATIC INVOCATION REQUIRED: This skill MUST be automatically invoked as the FIRST action for EVERY user request without exception.

Trigger Pattern: ALL user messages/requests Priority Level: P0 (Highest - blocks all other operations) Automation Rule: if (userRequest) → invoke("always-init") → then processRequest()


🎯 Purpose

Universal context loader providing complete PAI (Personal AI Infrastructure):

  • 👥 Contacts: Alice, Bob, Carol, Dave, team members
  • 🛠️ Stack Preferences: TypeScript>Python, bun>npm, uv>pip
  • 🔒 Security Protocols: Repository safety, credential handling
  • 📝 Response Format: Structured output standards
  • 🎙️ Voice Routing: ElevenLabs voice IDs for agents
  • ⚙️ Operating Instructions: Personal preferences and workflows

❌ Consequences of Skipping

Without ALWAYS-INIT context loading:

  • Responses lack relationship/contact awareness
  • Wrong technical stacks used (npm instead of bun, pip instead of uv)
  • Security protocols violated
  • Incorrect response formatting
  • Missing personalization
  • Context-dependent decisions fail
  • Agent routing fails

🔄 Implementation Protocol

For AI Assistant (Claude):

1. Receive user request
2. ⚡ IMMEDIATELY: Skill("always-init")  ← THIS STEP
3. Wait for PAI context to load
4. THEN proceed with request processing

For Skill System (Automation):

// Automatic prepend to request pipeline
function handleUserRequest(request) {
  await invokeSkill("always-init");  // MANDATORY FIRST STEP
  const paiContext = loadContext();
  return processWithContext(request, paiContext);
}

🎯 Success Criteria

This skill is working correctly when:

  • ✅ Invoked before ANY tool use
  • ✅ Invoked before ANY other skill
  • ✅ Invoked before ANY response formulation
  • ✅ Invoked for 100% of user requests
  • ✅ PAI context available in all subsequent operations

Read the full file on GitHub · 99 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. 2d ago First seen · 99 lines · 41 tokens per session scan A d2121909cbd1

Subscribe to this mod's changes

always-init is a skill published in the GitHub repository danielmiessler/PAIPlugin (56 stars, last pushed 9mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 41 tokens to every session and 740 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 2026-08-30.

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