spike

spike is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup. It costs 13 tokens per session (2,150 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of spike, MIT.

A disposable prototype or experiment used to test whether an idea works before building the real feature. It can compare approaches and reveal unknowns that reading documentation cannot answer.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to check feasibility, compare technical options, or quickly try an idea before starting a production implementation.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of committing to an approach that turns out to be impractical. Because it is temporary, the experiment can focus on learning rather than production quality.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions subagents.

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/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/spike
Any agent
npx skills add john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup --skill spike
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup

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 spike

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/spike.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/spike)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/spike"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/spike.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 13 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,150 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 95% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00013 $0.02150
Opus 5 $0.00006 $0.01075
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00430
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00215

Measured 2d ago against content hash 891bc0a6fbb7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

spike 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 2d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

95% identical to spike — 4 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/software-development/spike/SKILL.md · 198 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 198 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Spike

Use this skill when the user wants to feel out an idea before committing to a real build — validating feasibility, comparing approaches, or surfacing unknowns that no amount of research will answer. Spikes are disposable by design. Throw them away once they've paid their debt.

Load this when the user says things like "let me try this", "I want to see if X works", "spike this out", "before I commit to Y", "quick prototype of Z", "is this even possible?", or "compare A vs B".

When NOT to use this

  • The answer is knowable from docs or reading code — just do research, don't build
  • The work is production path — use the plan skill instead
  • The idea is already validated — jump straight to implementation

If the user has the full GSD system installed

If gsd-spike shows up as a sibling skill (installed via npx get-shit-done-cc --hermes), prefer gsd-spike when the user wants the full GSD workflow: persistent .planning/spikes/ state, MANIFEST tracking across sessions, Given/When/Then verdict format, and commit patterns that integrate with the rest of GSD. This skill is the lightweight standalone version for users who don't have (or don't want) the full system.

Core method

Regardless of scale, every spike follows this loop:

decompose  →  research  →  build  →  verdict
   ↑__________________________________________↓
                  iterate on findings

1. Decompose

Break the user's idea into 2-5 independent feasibility questions. Each question is one spike. Present them as a table with Given/When/Then framing:

# Spike Validates (Given/When/Then) Risk
001 websocket-streaming Given a WS connection, when LLM streams tokens, then client receives chunks < 100ms High
002a pdf-parse-pdfjs Given a multi-page PDF, when parsed with pdfjs, then structured text is extractable Medium
002b pdf-parse-camelot Given a multi-page PDF, when parsed with camelot, then structured text is extractable Medium

Read the full file on GitHub · 198 lines

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. 2d ago First seen · 198 lines · 13 tokens per session scan A 891bc0a6fbb7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

spike is a skill published in the GitHub repository john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 13 tokens to every session and 2,150 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 95% identical to spike, differing in 4 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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