052-design-hamburger-method

052-design-hamburger-method is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from jabrena/plinth. It costs 76 tokens per session (853 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

An interactive method for splitting a large feature or work plan into small, end-to-end pieces that each deliver visible value. A vertical slice covers the parts needed to complete one useful outcome.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to break features, stories, plans, or specifications into 4–5 deliverable slices after considering the main workflow layers.
Why use it?
It prevents oversized work from becoming a long list of disconnected technical tasks and helps teams start with the smallest useful version.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to break features, stories, plans, or specifications into 4–5 deliverable slices after considering the main workflow layers.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/jabrena/plinth/052-design-hamburger-method
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 jabrena/plinth --skill 052-design-hamburger-method
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 052-design-hamburger-method

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jabrena/plinth/052-design-hamburger-method/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/jabrena/plinth/052-design-hamburger-method)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jabrena/plinth/052-design-hamburger-method"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jabrena/plinth/052-design-hamburger-method/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 052-design-hamburger-method

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jabrena/plinth/052-design-hamburger-method"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jabrena/plinth/052-design-hamburger-method.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 76 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 853 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00076 $0.00853
Opus 5 $0.00038 $0.00426
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00171
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00085

Measured 9d ago against content hash 759b09bfe10c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

052-design-hamburger-method 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 9d 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/052-design-hamburger-method/SKILL.md · 74 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 74 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Hamburger Method Design

Guide Java teams through the Hamburger Method for splitting oversized work into small, valuable, end-to-end vertical slices. This is an interactive SKILL.

What is covered in this Skill?

  • Recognizing oversized feature, story, plan, or spec work
  • Identifying 3-6 functional or workflow layers that participate in delivering value
  • Generating 4-5 implementation or quality options per layer
  • Challenging scope with the smallest useful version question
  • Filtering options that are too costly, redundant, irreversible, or unnecessary for early learning
  • Composing one first vertical slice and follow-up slices
  • Self-checking value, size, testability, deliverability, and issue-tracking suitability
  • Routing plan, OpenSpec, GitHub issue, and Jira follow-up through the existing planning skills

Constraints

Split oversized work into vertical slices that deliver observable value, not isolated horizontal technical tasks.

  • MUST read references/052-design-hamburger-method.md before applying the method
  • MUST identify 3-6 functional or workflow layers before selecting a slice
  • MUST generate 4-5 options per layer, ordered from simplest acceptable option to richer options
  • MUST challenge scope with the smallest-useful-version question before recommending a first slice
  • MUST filter costly, redundant, irreversible, or unnecessary options before composing the first slice
  • MUST keep recommended work as vertical slices that deliver observable value
  • MUST NOT present isolated technical layers as independently shippable stories

When to use this skill

  • Apply the Hamburger Method
  • Split this oversized story
  • Find the smallest useful slice
  • Break this feature into vertical slices
  • Turn this broad plan into tracked slices
  • This feature is too large

Workflow

  1. Recognize Oversized Work

Read references/052-design-hamburger-method.md, then restate the large feature, story, plan, or spec idea and why ordinary implementation task decomposition would be too broad, risky, or horizontal.

Read the full file on GitHub · 74 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. 9d ago First seen · 74 lines · 76 tokens per session scan A 759b09bfe10c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

052-design-hamburger-method is a skill published in the GitHub repository jabrena/plinth (437 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 76 tokens to every session and 853 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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