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.
npx skills add fzfclee/consulting-skills --skill five-whys-root-causegit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fzfclee/consulting-skillsWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/fzfclee/consulting-skills/five-whys-root-cause)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/fzfclee/consulting-skills/five-whys-root-cause"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/fzfclee/consulting-skills/five-whys-root-cause/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/fzfclee/consulting-skills/five-whys-root-cause"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/fzfclee/consulting-skills/five-whys-root-cause.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00062 | $0.00751 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00031 | $0.00376 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00012 | $0.00150 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00075 |
Grade A, and why
five-whys-root-cause 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.
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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 88 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Five Whys Root Cause
Use this skill to run Five Whys Root Cause as a practical consulting method, not as a generic framework explanation.
Method Notes
- Ask why until reaching a controllable cause, not a person to blame.
- Branch when the answer has multiple causes.
Required Inputs
Collect or infer these inputs before execution:
- problem statement
- evidence
- timeline
- constraints and failed fixes
If an input is missing, do not block automatically. Mark it as missing, state the assumption used, and add a validation action.
When Not To Use
Do not use when the problem has several interacting causal paths, feedback loops, or insufficient event evidence. A single Why chain can oversimplify a multi-causal system.
Adjacent Methods
fishbone-diagram: use when several cause branches must be compared.systems-thinking: use when feedback, delay, or incentives keep recreating the issue.constraint-analysis: use when one limiting factor is already visible.
Step-by-Step Execution
| Step | Required input | How to execute | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| State problem | Observed issue, impact, scope, time. | Write one clear problem without blame. | Problem statement. |
| Ask first why | Problem and immediate evidence. | Explain the direct cause with evidence. | Cause 1. |
| Continue why chain | Previous cause and evidence. | Ask why again until reaching a controllable system/process cause. | Cause chain. |
| Branch if needed | Cause chain with multiple plausible causes. | Split into parallel why chains when one answer hides multiple causes. | Cause branches. |
| Convert to prevention | Root cause and constraints. | Define corrective action, owner, deadline, and recurrence check. | Root-cause action plan. |
Output Template
### 1. Problem Statement
Observed problem:
Expected state:
Evidence:
Boundary:
### 2. Why Chain
| Level | Why did this occur? | Evidence | Assumption |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |
### 3. Root Cause Judgment
Candidate root cause:
Mechanism:
Inside control:
Alternative branch:
### 4. Corrective And Preventive Action
| Action | Owner | Timing | Recurrence signal | Validation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |
### Evidence And Next Decision
- Confirmed facts:
- Assumptions:
- Missing evidence:
- Next action, owner, and timing:
- Expected signal and decision threshold:
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.
- 12d ago First seen · 88 lines · 62 tokens per session scan A 5650c5eaa206
five-whys-root-cause is a skill published in the GitHub repository fzfclee/consulting-skills (4 stars, last pushed 23d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 62 tokens to every session and 751 once invoked, about $0.0003 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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