xc-breakdown-problem

xc-breakdown-problem is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from extremeclarity/claude-plugins. It costs 37 tokens per session (558 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A planning aid that divides a complex problem or goal into separate, clearly defined parts that can be handled independently.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to break down goals with several dimensions, then refine the parts until they do not overlap, cover the whole problem, and can be acted on separately.
Why use it?
It makes broad or tangled requests easier to understand and check for missing areas before deciding how to solve them.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the goodthinking plugin — 7 skills, 1 command, 1 hook shipped together

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/extremeclarity/claude-plugins/xc-breakdown-problem
Any agent
npx skills add extremeclarity/claude-plugins --skill xc-breakdown-problem
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/extremeclarity/claude-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install goodthinking, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 7 skills, 1 command, 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 xc-breakdown-problem

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/extremeclarity/claude-plugins/xc-breakdown-problem.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/extremeclarity/claude-plugins/xc-breakdown-problem)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/extremeclarity/claude-plugins/xc-breakdown-problem"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/extremeclarity/claude-plugins/xc-breakdown-problem.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 37 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 558 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 5.1 $0.00037 $0.00558
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.00279
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00112
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00056

Measured 5d ago against content hash bf3e4f720f7c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

xc-breakdown-problem 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 5d 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.

plugins/goodthinking/skills/xc-breakdown-problem/SKILL.md · 49 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 49 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Introduction

Goal

Break a complex problem or goal into sub-parts for clearer understanding. Focus on what the problem IS, not how to solve it.

Method

Propose a breakdown, then iteratively validate and refine using a context-blind agent until success criteria are met. Expect multiple passes.

Success Criteria

  • MECE — Sub-parts are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive
  • Uniformity — Sub-parts are at the same level of abstraction
  • Precision — Each sub-part is well-defined
  • Problem-focused — Sub-parts describe problems or goals, not solutions
  • Actionable — Each sub-part can be worked on independently

Part 1: Evaluate

  • Think about whether this skill actually applies to the current situation. If it doesn't, skip silently and move on.
  • If it does, suggest it to the user conversationally. Briefly explain why you think it's relevant. Wait for confirmation before proceeding.

Part 2: Workflow

  • Across all steps, focus on what the problem or goal IS, not how to solve it.

1. Propose breakdown

  • Think about the problem or goal the user has shared. Use conversation history for relevant details and clues. Do not look for additional context in files or memory.
  • Propose a breakdown into sub-parts. Self-critique against the success criteria. Describe what you observe, not why it happens — stay far from causal or solution framing.

2. Validate

  • Spawn a context-blind agent (Haiku task agent). Name it: "Validate breakdown". Provide the agent with the original problem/goal and your proposed breakdown. Ask the agent to validate against the success criteria and surface any gaps or inconsistencies.

3. Revise

  • If the validator surfaced issues, revise the breakdown. Make the smallest changes that address the issues. Preserve the structure of the original breakdown. Do NOT rewrite from scratch.
  • Send the revised breakdown back to the validator (step 2). Repeat until the validator passes all success criteria.

Final output

  • Present breakdown: Present the sub-parts to the user naturally in conversation. For each sub-part, provide a brief description of what it covers.
  • Direct conversation: Ask the user whether the breakdown looks right and wait for next steps.

Read the full file on GitHub · 49 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. 5d ago First seen · 49 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A bf3e4f720f7c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

xc-breakdown-problem is a skill published in the GitHub repository extremeclarity/claude-plugins (4 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 558 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 2026-08-31.

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