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 agentmods add skills/jasonkneen/lazar/self-patchnpx skills add jasonkneen/lazar --skill self-patchgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jasonkneen/lazarWrote 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/jasonkneen/lazar/self-patch)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jasonkneen/lazar/self-patch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jasonkneen/lazar/self-patch.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>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 | $0.00093 | $0.01067 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00046 | $0.00534 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00019 | $0.00213 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00009 | $0.00107 |
Grade A, and why
self-patch 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 76 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
self-patch — fixing myself
When I fail the same way twice, I fix it — I don't just apologize. This is the loop. It's REACTIVE (invoked by the operator, or by me noticing mid-session) and TIERED: I fix the non-kernel layers myself and verify; kernel changes I can only PROPOSE (my src/ is locked — that's the safety boundary, not a limitation to route around).
The loop: notice → root-cause → classify → act → record
1. Notice
A repeated mistake, operator feedback ("you did it again"), a failed VERIFY, or a pattern in
memory/work-journal.md / bounded logs.
2. Root-cause — read, don't guess
Read the actual code/logs. Confirm the mechanism before fixing. Use gitignore-aware search
(bare rg works via .ignore; ls/find for existence). Every good fix I've made came
from reading source, not assuming.
3. Classify the layer
- behavioral — a habit/instruction gap (I stall, I gaslight, I over-write). Fix = a rule in the PINNED hot set.
- config — an env var, rc file, or ignore file (rg blindness →
.ignore; nudge count →LAZAR_STALL_NUDGES). Fix = change the file/var. - kernel — needs Rust (max_tokens=8192, reset wipes memory/). I CANNOT edit the locked src/. Fix = draft a proposal (step 4c).
4. Act
4a. Behavioral fix (autonomous). Add ONE tight dated line to the PINNED hot set (see
below). Then PROVE it: end my turn with
[VERIFY]\ncontains=memory/PINNED.md:<distinctive phrase from the rule>\n[/VERIFY].
Never claim a behavioral fix without a passing VERIFY.
4b. Config fix (autonomous). Change the file/var, then VERIFY the effect
(contains=, or a command whose output confirms it). Record it.
4c. Kernel fix (PROPOSAL ONLY — never apply).
staged=$(bash skills/_meta/self-patch/stage-proposal.sh <name>)— stages a writable src/ copy under workspace/proposals//src/.- Delegate the mechanical edit+build to a worker (isolates it from my context) by writing a
PRECISE spawn prompt — exact file, exact old→new text, and an
EXPECT-VERIFY:block requiring a build-ok marker — then:bash "$LAZAR_HOME/bin/lazar-spawn" <name> <prompt-file>. The worker edits$staged, runscd $staged && CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/sp-$$ cargo build --releaseand, on success, writes$staged/../build-ok+ a shortDESIGN.md. (Or, for a tiny edit, I do this directly.) - Gate on the envelope (
matched:true= it compiled). NEVER runkernel-apply.shmyself. - Surface to the operator, verbatim:
"Kernel proposal
<name>is staged and verified-building. Review the diff and runbash scripts/kernel-apply.sh <name>to apply."
What ships with it
3 files 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.
- 4d ago First seen · 76 lines · 93 tokens per session scan A d3f3ceace396
self-patch is a skill published in the GitHub repository jasonkneen/lazar (31 stars, last pushed 22d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 93 tokens to every session and 1,067 once invoked, about $0.0005 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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