bb is an agentic IDE that lets users control, customize, and automate a software-development environment through a desktop app, web app, command-line interface, or HTTP API. Developers use it to run work in observable threads that can be steered or handed off to other agents. Its catalogue add-ons provide skills and instructions for working with bb.
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 get-bb/bb --skill bb-plugin-authoringgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/get-bb/bbWrote 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/get-bb/bb/bb-plugin-authoring)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/get-bb/bb/bb-plugin-authoring"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/get-bb/bb/bb-plugin-authoring/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/get-bb/bb/bb-plugin-authoring"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/get-bb/bb/bb-plugin-authoring.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector pass
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 | $0.00028 | $0.01073 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00011 | $0.00429 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00215 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00003 | $0.00107 |
Grade A, and why
bb-plugin-authoring 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 yesterday.
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 — 114 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Author BB plugins
A BB plugin is a TypeScript package that can add server behavior, agent capabilities, host-rendered UI, or a frontend bundle.
Use the current SDK types and repository source as the contract. This skill routes to detailed references, but the installed BB version decides the exact API.
Implement and verify
Inspect the affected package and current SDK declarations to select backend, frontend, or both. Build the plugin and verify the affected contracts and user workflow. Install or reload when a live check is needed for the requested work.
To find where a plugin can extend the app, open the Plugin Guide in bb or at https://getbb.app/plugin-guide.
Use bb plugin new for a new plugin. The scaffold includes frontend files.
Remove bb.app and those files when the plugin is headless.
Every new public Plugin SDK surface starts with an experimental_ prefix and an entry in docs/api_to_audit.md. Add its Plugin Guide card and API inventory in the same change.
Read only the relevant reference
Start, package, and release
- Read references/quickstart.md for the first plugin, manifest fields, branding, plugin ids, builds, installs, and dependencies.
- Read references/distribution.md for exact API lookup, updates, Git or npm release, multi-plugin repositories, custom marketplaces, and store text.
Backend
- Read references/backend-foundation.md for the factory (and which reference
covers each
bb.*member), logging, settings, storage, server information, and host entries. - Read references/backend-sdk.md for the
bb.sdkarea map, threads, plugin metadata, files, terminals, attachments, and calls to another plugin's RPC. - Read references/backend-api-index.md to check every public backend, host, AI-service, and test export.
- Read references/backend-events.md for lifecycle events, the dispatch hook, environment providers, HTTP, RPC, realtime, background services, and schedules.
- Read references/backend-machines.md for machine providers, core project source setup, enrollment/bootstrap helpers, and server access.
- Read references/backend-cli-agents.md for CLI commands, input forms, agent tools, agent configuration, and helper AI services.
- Read references/providers.md only when the plugin registers an agent provider or contributes provider environment variables. Its contract lives in docs/provider-plugin-api.md and docs/provider-bridge-protocol.md in the bb repository.
- Read references/provider-bridge-api-index.md to check every public provider bridge, bridge-test, and ACP export.
- Read references/backend-ui-lifecycle.md for host-rendered UI, status, cleanup, and reload behavior.
What ships with it
19 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.
- references/backend-api-index.md 12 KB
- references/backend-cli-agents.md 14 KB
- references/backend-events.md 24 KB
- references/backend-foundation.md 15 KB
- references/backend-machines.md 12 KB
- references/backend-sdk.md 18 KB
- references/backend-ui-lifecycle.md 3.2 KB
- references/distribution.md 11 KB
- references/frontend-api-index.md 8.0 KB
- references/frontend-components.md 20 KB
- references/frontend-core-slots.md 17 KB
- references/frontend-hooks-and-ui.md 20 KB
- references/frontend-registration.md 18 KB
- references/frontend-renderer-slots.md 12 KB
- references/frontend-testing-api-index.md 812 B
- references/provider-bridge-api-index.md 13 KB
- references/providers.md 13 KB
- references/quickstart.md 11 KB
- references/testing.md 13 KB
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.
- yesterday Changed · +7 lines f92812030e69
- 10d ago Changed · +3 lines 778f4c1f137e
- 16d ago Changed · +1 lines 7ba393b0a44c
- 1mo ago Changed · +2 lines 68d012ef9580
- 1mo ago Changed fdaeacb7809b
- 1mo ago Changed · -30 tokens per session 8932fd058376
- 1mo ago First seen · 101 lines · 58 tokens per session scan A f1f05a0fed14
bb-plugin-authoring is a skill published in the GitHub repository get-bb/bb (4,324 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 28 tokens to every session and 1,073 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. 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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