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 jeffreytse/grimoire-core --skill run-reference-checkgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jeffreytse/grimoire-coreWrote 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/jeffreytse/grimoire-core/run-reference-check)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jeffreytse/grimoire-core/run-reference-check"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jeffreytse/grimoire-core/run-reference-check/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/jeffreytse/grimoire-core/run-reference-check"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jeffreytse/grimoire-core/run-reference-check.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" 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 5.1 | $0.00038 | $0.02135 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00015 | $0.00854 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00008 | $0.00427 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00214 |
Grade A, and why
run-reference-check 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 1mo 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 — 119 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Run Reference Check
Conduct structured phone reference calls on hiring finalists — asking former managers for specific performance evidence, development areas, and rehire intent — to surface information that candidates cannot provide about themselves.
Why This Is Best Practice
Adopted by: Smart & Street's "A Method" reference check methodology is used extensively in private equity hiring processes (Blackstone, KKR, general Atlantic portfolio companies) and by ghSMART in executive hiring engagements; the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) identifies reference checks as a required element of legally defensible hiring; major technology companies including LinkedIn, Microsoft, and McKinsey use structured reference protocols rather than informal calls
Impact: Smart & Street's research (313 hiring decisions analyzed) found that candidates evaluated through the full A Method — which includes 4–7 structured reference calls — produced A-player hires 90% of the time vs. 26% without the method; their analysis found that candidate-provided references alone (friends who will say positive things) were nearly worthless, and that the specific technique of asking for references not on the candidate's list ("who else would know your work?") produced the most predictive information; SHRM's analysis found that 85% of employers have caught candidates lying on resumes or applications — but resume fraud is rarely caught in the interview; reference checks catch it
Why best: Candidates are highly motivated to present themselves favorably in interviews and have had time to prepare; former managers who worked with them daily have direct observational evidence that cannot be fabricated; the reference check bypasses the candidate's self-presentation and accesses the evidence of their actual work behavior — which is the strongest predictor of future performance (see also run-behavioral-interview for interview-side evidence)
Sources: Smart & Street "Who: The A Method for Hiring" (Ballantine Books, 2008); Chamorro-Premuzic "The Talent Delusion" (Piatkus, 2017); SHRM "Reference Checking" knowledge center (shrm.org)
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 119 lines · 38 tokens per session scan A c4c894da74a2
run-reference-check is a skill published in the GitHub repository jeffreytse/grimoire-core (5 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 38 tokens to every session and 2,135 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-09-03.
Other skills, from other repositories
semantic-model-disambiguation
Analyze Power BI semantic models for column-level overlaps that confuse Copilot and Fabric data agents. Detect ambiguity, review with domain expert, apply fixes via MCP.
prompt-2-data
Generate comprehensive synthetic relational data for any specified subject with multiple normalized CSV files maintaining referential integrity.
academic-paper-drafting
End-to-end academic paper drafting for CHI, HBR, journals, and conferences with venue-specific templates, drafting workflows, and revision strategies.
research-first-development
Build knowledge bases that build software — research before code, teach before execute.
infrastructure-as-code
Domain: DevOps & Cloud Engineering.
agent-governance
Patterns for adding safety, trust, and policy enforcement to AI agent systems -- control which tools agents can call, what content they process, and maintain accountability through audit trails.