detect-zero-iteration-failures

detect-zero-iteration-failures is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from HKUDS/OpenSpace. It costs 23 tokens per session (1,093 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A procedure for investigating agent runs that failed before doing any work. A zero-iteration failure means no iterations, tools, files, or meaningful conversation were produced.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when an execution stops before tool use or artifact creation, to classify likely initialization and environment problems.
Why use it?
It separates startup or environment failures from mistakes made while carrying out a task. That points the investigation toward system setup rather than agent code.

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/hkuds/openspace/detect-zero-iteration-failures
Any agent
npx skills add HKUDS/OpenSpace --skill detect-zero-iteration-failures
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/HKUDS/OpenSpace

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 detect-zero-iteration-failures

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hkuds/openspace/detect-zero-iteration-failures.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/hkuds/openspace/detect-zero-iteration-failures)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/hkuds/openspace/detect-zero-iteration-failures"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hkuds/openspace/detect-zero-iteration-failures.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 23 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,093 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 $0.00023 $0.01093
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00547
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00219
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00109

Measured 4d ago against content hash 963d701eb2e6, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

detect-zero-iteration-failures 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 4d 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.

benchmarks/gdpval/skills/detect-zero-iteration-failures/SKILL.md · 152 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 152 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Detect Zero-Iteration Failures

This skill helps identify and properly categorize agent failures that occur before any task execution begins. These failures require system-level investigation rather than agent-level debugging.

When to Apply

Use this skill when analyzing agent task executions where:

  1. Iteration count is 0 - The agent completed zero iterations
  2. No tool usage - No tools were invoked during the execution
  3. No artifacts created - No files, documents, or outputs were produced
  4. Minimal or no conversation log - Only the user instruction exists, with no agent responses

Identification Checklist

Check the following indicators to confirm a zero-iteration failure:

[ ] Iterations reported: 0
[ ] Tool invocations: None
[ ] Files created: None  
[ ] Conversation turns: 1 (user instruction only)
[ ] Agent self-report: Indicates failure before execution began

Failure Categories

Zero-iteration failures typically indicate one of these pre-execution issues:

Category Description Investigation Focus
Initialization crash Agent failed during setup System logs, environment config
Environment issue Missing dependencies or resources Infrastructure, permissions
Prompt parsing error Input could not be processed Prompt format, encoding
Resource exhaustion Quota or limits exceeded System capacity, rate limits

Diagnostic Steps

Step 1: Verify Zero-Iteration Indicators

def is_zero_iteration_failure(execution_log):
    """Check if execution shows zero-iteration failure pattern."""
    indicators = {
        'iterations': execution_log.get('iterations', 0) == 0,
        'tools_used': len(execution_log.get('tool_calls', [])) == 0,
        'artifacts': len(execution_log.get('files_created', [])) == 0,
        'conversation_length': len(execution_log.get('messages', [])) <= 1
    }
    return all(indicators.values())

Step 2: Check System-Level Indicators

Read the full file on GitHub · 152 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file 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. 4d ago First seen · 152 lines · 23 tokens per session scan A 963d701eb2e6

Subscribe to this mod's changes

detect-zero-iteration-failures is a skill published in the GitHub repository HKUDS/OpenSpace (7,501 stars, last pushed 22d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 23 tokens to every session and 1,093 once invoked, about $0.0001 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.

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