incremental-implementation

A workflow for delivering a multi-file change in small, independently checked pieces. Each piece is implemented, tested, verified, and optionally committed before the next one begins.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for features, refactors, and other changes that span several files, especially when the work can be divided into complete slices.
Why use it?
It limits the amount of unverified work and makes failures easier to locate and correct.

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/douglance/sdlc-plugin/incremental-implementation
Any agent
npx skills add douglance/sdlc-plugin --skill incremental-implementation
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/douglance/sdlc-plugin

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 20 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,527 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 $0.00020 $0.01527
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00763
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00305
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00153

Measured 2d ago against content hash 4adddf2b4b2b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

incremental-implementation 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.

.agents/skills/incremental-implementation/SKILL.md · 218 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 218 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Incremental Implementation

When to Use

  • Implementing any multi-file change
  • Building a new feature from a task breakdown
  • Refactoring existing code
  • Any time you're tempted to write more than ~100 lines before testing

When NOT to use: Single-file, single-function changes where the scope is already minimal.

The Increment Cycle

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                      │
│   Implement ──→ Test ──→ Verify ──┐  │
│       ▲                           │  │
│       └───── Commit ◄─────────────┘  │
│              │                       │
│              ▼                       │
│          Next slice                  │
│                                      │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

For each slice:

  1. Implement the smallest complete piece of functionality
  2. Test — run the test suite (or write a test if none exists)
  3. Verify — confirm the slice does what the increment intended (tests pass, build succeeds, drive it and observe the result)
  4. Record -- when the task includes commit authority, save the verified slice as an atomic commit (see git-workflow-and-versioning)
  5. Move to the next slice — carry forward, don't restart

Slicing Strategies

Vertical Slices (Preferred)

Build one complete path through the stack:

Slice 1: Create a task (DB + API + basic UI)
    → Tests pass, user can create a task via the UI

Slice 2: List tasks (query + API + UI)
    → Tests pass, user can see their tasks

Slice 3: Edit a task (update + API + UI)
    → Tests pass, user can modify tasks

Slice 4: Delete a task (delete + API + UI + confirmation)
    → Tests pass, full CRUD complete

Each slice delivers working end-to-end functionality.

Contract-First Slicing

When backend and frontend need to develop in parallel:

Slice 0: Define the API contract (types, interfaces, OpenAPI spec)
Slice 1a: Implement backend against the contract + API tests
Slice 1b: Implement frontend against mock data matching the contract
Slice 2: Integrate and test end-to-end

Read the full file on GitHub · 218 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 · 218 lines · 20 tokens per session scan A 4adddf2b4b2b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

incremental-implementation is a skill published in the GitHub repository douglance/sdlc-plugin (4 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 20 tokens to every session and 1,527 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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