PRD-README v1 Standard

PRD-README v1 Standard is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from hculap/better-code. It costs 84 tokens per session (1,559 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A standard for writing product-ready README files, which are the main instructions and reference documents in a code project. It focuses on helping readers decide whether a project fits, get a first result quickly, and find reliable answers.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create, improve, review, or audit a README, including its target audience, quick-start path, support information, quality signals, and maintenance process.
Why use it?
It prevents documentation from becoming an unstructured feature list that is hard to trust, follow, or keep accurate.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the readme-writer plugin — 1 skill 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/hculap/better-code/prd-readme-standard
Any agent
npx skills add hculap/better-code --skill prd-readme-standard
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/hculap/better-code

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install readme-writer, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill.

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 PRD-README v1 Standard

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hculap/better-code/prd-readme-standard.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/hculap/better-code/prd-readme-standard)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/hculap/better-code/prd-readme-standard"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hculap/better-code/prd-readme-standard.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 84 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,559 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 $0.00084 $0.01559
Opus 5 $0.00042 $0.00779
Sonnet 5 $0.00017 $0.00312
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00156

Measured 3d ago against content hash 4158eef1d359, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

PRD-README v1 Standard 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.

plugins/readme-writer/skills/prd-readme-standard/SKILL.md · 219 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 219 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

PRD-README v1 Standard

Product-Ready Documentation README standard for creating documentation that reliably produces correct adoption decisions, fast first success, low support burden, sustained trust, and low drift.

Core Definition

A README is "perfect" when it achieves:

  1. Correct adoption decision - Reader quickly knows if project fits their needs
  2. Fast first success - Copy/paste path to working result in under 5 minutes
  3. Low support burden - Answers top questions upfront
  4. Sustained trust - Clear status and quality signals
  5. Low drift - Stays accurate via process/automation

The 9-Step Build Process

Follow these steps in order when creating or improving a README.

Step 0: Specify Target Reader and Job-to-be-Done

Before writing any README content, define these three lines:

Primary user: [e.g., "Python developer who wants an HTTP client library"]
Primary job: [e.g., "install → call API → handle auth"]
Success in 5 minutes: [e.g., "send one request and see JSON response"]

Failure to define these results in either a manifesto or an API dump.

Step 1: Engineer the Top Section (Above the Fold)

Goal: 15-30 seconds to decide whether to continue reading.

Include in this exact order:

  1. # ProjectName
  2. One-sentence value proposition: what it does + for whom + differentiator
  3. Status line (mandatory): Status: active | beta | stable | deprecated | unmaintained
  4. Primary links: docs, releases/changelog, issues/discussions/support
  5. Badges (optional, limited): only build, version, license
  6. One visual if product is visual (screenshot/GIF)

Rules:

  • If first screen is 70% badges → conversion problem
  • If status is unclear → trust problem

Step 2: Provide Executable Quickstart

Goal: First working result in under 5 minutes (TTFS - Time To First Success).

Quickstart must contain:

  1. Prerequisites (explicit versions)
  2. Install (one-liner if possible)
  3. Run/Use (minimal example)
  4. Expected output or "what success looks like"

Read the full file on GitHub · 219 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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.

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 · 219 lines · 84 tokens per session scan A 4158eef1d359

Subscribe to this mod's changes

PRD-README v1 Standard is a skill published in the GitHub repository hculap/better-code (2 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 84 tokens to every session and 1,559 once invoked, about $0.0004 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.