minimum-viable

A checklist for choosing the simplest implementation that can meet a project's needs. It asks whether a shell script or a few commands are enough before introducing a larger application or extra dependencies.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it before building a tool or feature to define the problem, compare simple and complex approaches, verify dependencies, and assess maintenance cost.
Why use it?
It helps prevent over-engineering by requiring a concrete reason for every added layer of complexity. It also checks dependencies and ongoing maintenance before code is written.

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/ferrumclaudepilgrim/claude-code-android/minimum-viable
Any agent
npx skills add ferrumclaudepilgrim/claude-code-android --skill minimum-viable
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ferrumclaudepilgrim/claude-code-android

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 49 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 462 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 $0.00049 $0.00462
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.00231
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00092
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00046

Measured 3d ago against content hash 6221456ea410, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

minimum-viable 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 3d 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.

.claude/skills/minimum-viable/SKILL.md · 39 lines

What it actually says

Minimum Viable Implementation Check

Answer every question before writing any code. If the simple version is sufficient, build that. Document why only if you choose a heavier approach.

Required Questions

1. What are you building? One sentence. If you cannot describe it in one sentence, the scope is not defined yet.

2. What is the simplest possible implementation? Usually: a shell script, a single file, a few commands piped together, a cron entry, a git hook. Describe it. Estimate the line count.

3. Why is the simple version insufficient? State a concrete reason. Not "it won't scale" but "it cannot handle binary data" or "it requires a persistent HTTP connection." If you cannot state a concrete reason, build the simple version.

4. What is the proposed implementation? If you are not building the simple version: name the language, framework, and every dependency. Justify each one.

5. Are dependencies available and working on this platform? For each dependency: is it installed? Does it work on the current OS and architecture? Have you verified this, or are you assuming? Check before committing to an approach.

6. What is the maintenance cost? Will this break when a dependency updates? Who fixes it? If the answer is "whoever is here then," that is a cost. Weight it against the benefit of the heavier approach.

Decision Rule

  • If question 3 has no answer: build the simple version, stop here.
  • If question 3 has an answer: proceed with the proposed implementation, but document the reason in a comment or README so the next person knows why the complexity exists.
  • If question 5 reveals a missing dependency: verify availability before starting, or redesign to avoid it.
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. 3d ago First seen · 39 lines · 49 tokens per session scan A 6221456ea410

Subscribe to this mod's changes

minimum-viable is a skill published in the GitHub repository ferrumclaudepilgrim/claude-code-android (222 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 49 tokens to every session and 462 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.