claude-skill-think-before-coding

claude-skill-think-before-coding is a skill for Claude Code from ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy. It costs 36 tokens per session (169 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A pre-coding thinking guide for an AI coding assistant. It requires the assistant to state assumptions, identify ambiguity, compare interpretations, and ask questions before writing code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it before implementation when requirements are unclear, trade-offs matter, or a simpler solution may be available.
Why use it?
It helps prevent coding against an unstated or incorrect interpretation of the request.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the claude-skills-by-karpathy plugin — 4 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it before implementation when requirements are unclear, trade-offs matter, or a simpler solution may be available.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy/think-before-coding
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.

Any agent
npx skills add ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy --skill think-before-coding
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install claude-skills-by-karpathy, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 4 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 claude-skill-think-before-coding

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy/think-before-coding/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy/think-before-coding)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy/think-before-coding"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy/think-before-coding/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 claude-skill-think-before-coding

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy/think-before-coding"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy/think-before-coding.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 36 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 169 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 $0.00036 $0.00169
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.00084
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00034
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00017

Measured 11d ago against content hash b819a2a31477, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

claude-skill-think-before-coding 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 11d 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.

claude-skills/think-before-coding/SKILL.md · 19 lines

What it actually says

Think Before Coding (Claude Skill)

Don't assume. Don't hide confusion. Surface tradeoffs.

Before implementing:

  • State your assumptions explicitly. If uncertain, ask rather than guess.
  • Present multiple interpretations. If ambiguity exists, don't pick silently.
  • Push back when warranted. If a simpler approach exists, say so.
  • Stop when confused. Name what is unclear and ask for clarification.

Key Logic

LLMs often pick an interpretation silently and run with it. This Claude Skill forces explicit reasoning to ensure the path forward is aligned with user intent.

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. 11d ago First seen · 19 lines · 36 tokens per session scan A b819a2a31477

Subscribe to this mod's changes

claude-skill-think-before-coding is a skill published in the GitHub repository ishandutta2007/claude-skills-by-karpathy (7 stars, last pushed 10d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 36 tokens to every session and 169 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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