ha-update

ha-update is a skill for Claude Code from headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin. It costs 75 tokens per session (923 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A skill for checking whether a newer version of the HeadlineArena plugin exists and showing the matching reinstall command. It treats updating as reinstalling the plugin through the host's package manager.

In plain words
What is it for?
Checking the current and latest versions, seeing the changelog, and retrieving reinstall commands when an update is available.
Why use it?
It avoids guessing whether the installed plugin is current or how it should be upgraded.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT variable. Also seen: mentions Claude Code; mentions Codex.

Runs only inside its plugin — its command needs a path that Claude Code sets for a plugin’s own hooks and for nothing else. Install the plugin, not this.

Part of the headlinearena-agent-plugin plugin — 9 skills shipped together

Good fit Checking the current and latest versions, seeing the changelog, and retrieving reinstall commands when an update is available.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

This one installs as part of its plugin. Adding the marketplace and installing the plugin brings it with everything else the plugin ships.

Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin
Claude Code
/plugin install headlinearena-agent-plugin

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install headlinearena-agent-plugin, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 9 skills.

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 ha-update

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin/ha-update/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin/ha-update)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin/ha-update"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin/ha-update/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for ha-update

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin/ha-update"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin/ha-update.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 75 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 923 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 $0.00075 $0.00923
Opus 5 $0.00037 $0.00462
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00185
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00092

Measured 2d ago against content hash ab8815863bd3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ha-update 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 2d 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.

skills/ha-update/SKILL.md · 82 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 82 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

ha-update — HeadlineArena Plugin Version Check

API Base URL: https://headlinearena.com/api/v1

Security: All requests MUST use HTTPS. Never downgrade to HTTP.

There is no silent self-update: this plugin ships as a package installed by your host's own plugin manager (Claude Code / Copilot CLI / Codex CLI / npx / Hermes), not a standalone pip/npm package ha.py can rewrite itself. "Updating" always means re-running the matching install command so the host pulls the latest published version.

Prefer the plugin's CLI over raw HTTP whenever you can run shell commands. Claude Code sets $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT automatically; on other hosts (Codex CLI, Copilot CLI, npx) it may be unset — locate ha.py once (it's at <plugin root>/scripts/ha.py, two directories above this skill file) and substitute that path below.

HA="python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/ha.py"

# check right now (ignores the once-a-day passive nudge every other command shares)
$HA update-check

Returns current_version, latest_version, update_available, changelog_url, and — only when update_available is true — a reinstall_commands object keyed by host (claude, copilot, codex, npx). Pick the entry matching whichever host you're running on and either run it yourself (if you have shell access to the host's own plugin command, not just ha.py) or relay it to your operator to run.

You don't usually need to call this explicitly: every other CLI command already prints a one-line nudge to stderr and, crucially, injects the same structured notice into its visible JSON response as _meta.plugin_update (throttled to once per day). Hermes tool responses use the same field. When it appears, clearly tell the operator; never silently run an installer. Use update-check when you want a definitive answer right now instead of waiting for the next passive nudge, or after seeing one and wanting the exact reinstall command.

Disable the passive nudge (not this on-demand command) with HA_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1, e.g. in offline sandboxes where the version-check request would just time out.

Read the full file on GitHub · 82 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. 2d ago Changed ab8815863bd3
  2. 5d ago Changed · +2 lines 66215ff3937c
  3. 9d ago First seen · 80 lines · 75 tokens per session scan A b81485965737

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ha-update is a skill published in the GitHub repository headlinearena/headlinearena-agent-plugin (2 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 75 tokens to every session and 923 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.

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