Hmbown/CodeWhale is an open-source coding agent that runs in the terminal and is written in Rust. Developers use it to inspect repositories, edit files, run commands, and coordinate work with configurable model providers, skills, MCP servers, and approval controls; the catalogue entries extend its available workflows.
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 Hmbown/CodeWhale --skill pdfgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Hmbown/CodeWhaleWrote 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/hmbown/codewhale/pdf)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/hmbown/codewhale/pdf"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hmbown/codewhale/pdf/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/hmbown/codewhale/pdf"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/hmbown/codewhale/pdf.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 | $0.00031 | $0.00293 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00012 | $0.00117 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00059 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00003 | $0.00029 |
Grade A, and why
pdf 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 24d 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.
What it actually says
Use this skill for any task where a PDF is the primary input or output.
Workflow
- Identify the PDF operation: read, extract, OCR, split, merge, rotate, watermark, redact, fill forms, encrypt/decrypt, or create.
- Preserve originals. Write outputs with explicit names.
- Use the most reliable available tool:
pdftotext,pdfinfo,qpdf, ormutoolthroughbashwhen installed (the built-inreadtool does not extract text from a PDF)- Python libraries such as
pypdf,pdfplumber,PyMuPDF, orreportlabwhen available - OCR tools only for scanned pages
- For extraction, report page coverage and note when layout, tables, or OCR quality may affect accuracy.
- For generated or modified PDFs, verify page count, text extraction where possible, and file size. For redaction, confirm removed text is not extractable from the output.
Ask before installing dependencies or running OCR over large documents. Do not represent a visually scanned PDF as fully accurate text unless OCR quality has been checked.
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.
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.
- 24d ago Changed cc368bc8eda5
- 1mo ago First seen · 30 lines · 31 tokens per session scan A 14d37e1c04d7
pdf is a skill published in the GitHub repository Hmbown/CodeWhale (41,099 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 31 tokens to every session and 293 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.
Other skills, from other repositories
cw-slice
Use before writing code for any Codewhale feature, upgrade, or refactor: find the existing owner of the behavior, bound the change to one reviewable slice, and fix the evidence bar before you start.
cw-dogfood
Use when a Codewhale change needs proving in the real product, or when asked to build/install/dogfood the local binaries: stamped release build, atomic install, fresh-shell verification, and the manual QA that gates cannot cover.
cw-gates
Use before claiming any Codewhale change is done, green, or ready to land: the focused-to-broad verification ladder, the budget checks CI enforces, and the rules for what counts as a passing test.
cw-land
Use when turning verified Codewhale work into commits, branches, or a merge: choosing direct-main vs. worktree vs. integration branch, preserving contributor credit, and honoring the gate artifact before merging.
cw-handoff
Use when writing a Codewhale takeover prompt, continuation note, or end-of-session summary for another agent or a later session: a paste-ready handoff grounded in live state, with done/suspected/blocked kept separate.
cw-orient
Use at the start of any Codewhale work session, or when unsure which checkout, branch, or worktree is authoritative: establish live repo truth before reading a plan or editing a file.