021-problem-framing

021-problem-framing is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from jabrena/plinth. It costs 82 tokens per session (712 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

An interactive guide for clearly describing a problem, its current and desired states, affected people, and signs of success before analyzing it further.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to frame an issue, record observable facts, identify stakeholders, define success criteria, and prepare for root-cause analysis.
Why use it?
It keeps investigation focused on the actual problem instead of jumping straight to a technology or solution.

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/jabrena/plinth/021-problem-framing
Any agent
npx skills add jabrena/plinth --skill 021-problem-framing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jabrena/plinth

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 021-problem-framing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jabrena/plinth/021-problem-framing.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/jabrena/plinth/021-problem-framing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jabrena/plinth/021-problem-framing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jabrena/plinth/021-problem-framing.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 82 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 712 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 $0.00082 $0.00712
Opus 5 $0.00041 $0.00356
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00142
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00071

Measured 5d ago against content hash bf0bc48a1999, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

021-problem-framing 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 5d 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/021-problem-framing/SKILL.md · 67 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 67 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Problem Framing

Guide production of a Problem statement, Current state, Desired state, Stakeholders, and Success criteria for a problem or issue under exploration. This is an interactive SKILL.

What is covered in this Skill?

  • Stating the problem independently of any specific solution
  • Describing the current state using observable facts
  • Describing the desired state as an outcome, not an implementation mechanism
  • Identifying stakeholders affected by, accountable for, or informed about the problem
  • Defining success criteria that make problem resolution verifiable
  • Feeding a clarified problem frame into 022-root-cause-analysis and the remaining Functional Specification lenses

Constraints

Frame the problem before any deeper analysis. When this technique is orchestrated by another workflow, the orchestrator owns clarifying-question sequencing; when applied standalone, ask directly.

  • MUST read references/021-problem-framing.md before applying Problem Framing guidance
  • MUST state the problem independently of any specific solution, technology, or implementation
  • MUST describe the current state using observable facts, not opinions or assumed causes
  • MUST describe the desired state as an outcome or capability, not a specific mechanism
  • MUST identify stakeholders affected by, accountable for, or informed about the problem, not only the requester
  • MUST define success criteria that are observable or measurable
  • MUST NOT invent a problem statement, state, stakeholder, or success criterion when the available content is vague or ambiguous; flag the gap for a clarifying question instead

When to use this skill

  • Frame this problem before deeper analysis
  • Apply problem framing to this issue
  • Establish the problem statement, current state, and desired state
  • Identify stakeholders and success criteria for this problem
  • Draft the Problem Framing section of a Functional Specification

Workflow

  1. Read the Reference

Read the full file on GitHub · 67 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. 5d ago First seen · 67 lines · 82 tokens per session scan A bf0bc48a1999

Subscribe to this mod's changes

021-problem-framing is a skill published in the GitHub repository jabrena/plinth (435 stars, last pushed today), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 82 tokens to every session and 712 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 2026-08-30.

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