getting-up-to-speed

getting-up-to-speed is a skill for Claude Code from DollarDill/beads-superpowers. It costs 97 tokens per session (2,717 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A procedure for understanding an unfamiliar or outdated codebase before starting work. A codebase is a project's existing source files and related history; the procedure summarizes its current state from direct checks.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it at the start of a session, after losing context, or when asking where a project stands before choosing the next task.
Why use it?
It prevents work based on stale assumptions when the project's structure, progress, or open tasks are unclear.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md; mentions subagents; mentions AGENTS.md.

Part of the beads-superpowers plugin — 22 skills, 1 agent, 1 hook shipped together

Good fit Use it at the start of a session, after losing context, or when asking where a project stands before choosing the next task.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/dollardill/beads-superpowers/getting-up-to-speed
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 DollarDill/beads-superpowers --skill getting-up-to-speed
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/DollarDill/beads-superpowers

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install beads-superpowers, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 22 skills, 1 agent, 1 hook.

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 getting-up-to-speed

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dollardill/beads-superpowers/getting-up-to-speed/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/dollardill/beads-superpowers/getting-up-to-speed)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dollardill/beads-superpowers/getting-up-to-speed"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dollardill/beads-superpowers/getting-up-to-speed/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 getting-up-to-speed

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dollardill/beads-superpowers/getting-up-to-speed"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dollardill/beads-superpowers/getting-up-to-speed.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 97 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,717 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
  • 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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00097 $0.02717
Opus 5 $0.00048 $0.01358
Sonnet 5 $0.00019 $0.00543
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00272

Measured 12d ago against content hash 9140058742e9, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

getting-up-to-speed 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 12d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/orient.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/getting-up-to-speed/SKILL.md · 155 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 155 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Getting Up to Speed

Orient on the project before any work: re-derive the current state from ground truth — commands run THIS session, never memory — and stop for the user's call.

Announce at start: "I'm using the getting-up-to-speed skill to orient on the project."

When NOT to use: a single targeted question; already oriented this session and nothing changed; a fresh empty repo (use the project-init skill).

frugal bd kernel: bounded by selection and shape, not by a forbidden call — the memory digest emits a defined tier as short gists, never every body. bd ready --claim is FORBIDDEN here — orientation ends at the terminal contract and the user picks the work.

Steps

Copy this checklist into your working response and tick as you go:

  • 1 Gathered (orient.sh + handoff)
  • 2 Explored (path by scale)
  • 3 Drilled (top beads)
  • 4 Closed (capture → prune → archive)
  • 5 Summary emitted through the gate

Summary-last. Every tool call and every bookkeeping line lands before the summary; the summary block ends your response, where the user's eye already is.

1 — Gather (at most 2 tool calls)

Run bash <skill-base-dir>/scripts/orient.sh once. It emits raw labeled sections: scale (tracked=N, git=0|1), ledger, ready, in-progress, blocked, memories (digest: key — gist lines, hazard-class first, then salience >=4), handoff (path=, head_sha=, doc_sha=, doc_mtime=, last_commit_time=, inbox_count=). It never runs bd dolt commands — orientation stays read-only. If == handoff == has a path= line, Read that file (the second call); quote only its short headline — never echo doc body sections that could carry secrets. The handoff is a synthesized narrative → cross-check it in step 4 and tag it ⚠️, never "verified".

  • No <beads-context> block visible this session → run bd prime once before the script.
  • bd missing / .beads absent → the bd sections read SKIP: skip step 3 and the beads lines of the summary; emit "Beads: not installed — skipped".

Read the full file on GitHub · 155 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. 12d ago First seen · 155 lines · 97 tokens per session scan A 9140058742e9

Subscribe to this mod's changes

getting-up-to-speed is a skill published in the GitHub repository DollarDill/beads-superpowers (26 stars, last pushed 20d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 97 tokens to every session and 2,717 once invoked, about $0.0005 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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