aps-planning

aps-planning is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from joshuaboys/gx. It costs 0 tokens per session (1,758 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A planning method called Anvil Plan Spec, or APS, that stores structured task plans as Markdown files. The plans remain in the project so work can continue after a context reset or handoff.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan complex implementations, record decisions in the plans/ directory, track progress, and preserve the plan for later sessions or other agents.
Why use it?
It prevents important decisions, validation steps, and task intent from being lost during long coding tasks. It also requires each work item to be validated before it is marked complete.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Needs its repository: it runs a file that does not travel with it, so clone the repository first. The line is | [auth](./modules/auth.aps.md) | Authentication | Draft |.

Good fit Use it to plan complex implementations, record decisions in the plans/ directory, track progress, and preserve the plan for later sessions or other agents.

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Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/joshuaboys/gx
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/joshuaboys/gx/aps-planning

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 aps-planning

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/joshuaboys/gx/aps-planning/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/joshuaboys/gx/aps-planning)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/joshuaboys/gx/aps-planning"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/joshuaboys/gx/aps-planning/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 aps-planning

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/joshuaboys/gx/aps-planning"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/joshuaboys/gx/aps-planning.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,758 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.
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 $0.00000 $0.01758
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00879
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00352
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00176

Measured 10d ago against content hash 2e743f34f750, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

aps-planning 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 10d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 12 executable files (scripts/check-complete.ps1, scripts/check-complete.sh, scripts/enforce-plan-update.ps1, …), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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.

aps-planning/SKILL.md · 263 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 263 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

APS Planning Skill

Persistent, structured planning for AI agents using Anvil Plan Spec.

What This Skill Does

This skill teaches you to use APS (Anvil Plan Spec) — a markdown-based planning format — as persistent memory for complex tasks. APS files live in plans/ and survive context resets, session clears, and handoffs.

Core insight: Your context window is RAM (volatile, limited). The filesystem is disk (persistent, unlimited). Anything important gets written to APS files.

Hard Rules

  1. Plan before building. Never start a complex task without an APS file. If plans/ doesn't exist, create it. If no spec covers this work, create one before writing code.

  2. Read before deciding. Before any major implementation decision, re-read the relevant APS spec. After many tool calls, your original goals drift out of your attention window. Re-reading brings them back.

  3. Update as you go. After completing a work item or discovering something important, update the APS file immediately. Stale specs lose trust.

  4. Never skip validation. Every work item has a Validation field. Run it before marking anything complete.

  5. Specs describe intent, not implementation. Write what and why, never how. Implementation emerges from code patterns and agent judgment.

When to Trigger APS Planning

Use APS when the user asks you to:

  • Build a new feature with multiple parts
  • Plan, design, or architect something
  • Work on something that spans multiple files or domains
  • Execute work that needs coordination or sequencing
  • Pick up where a previous session left off

Don't use APS for: Quick one-off fixes, single-file edits, questions, or trivial changes.

The APS Workflow

Assess → Plan → Execute → Validate → Update

1. Assess

Before planning, understand what exists:

1. Check: Does plans/ directory exist?
2. Check: Does plans/index.aps.md exist?
3. Check: Are there module files in plans/modules/?
4. Read plans/aps-rules.md if present (agent guidance)
5. Identify: Is this new work or continuing existing work?

Read the full file on GitHub · 263 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. 10d ago First seen · 263 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 2e743f34f750

Subscribe to this mod's changes

aps-planning is a skill published in the GitHub repository joshuaboys/gx (10 stars, last pushed 28d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,758 tokens. 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 2026-08-31.

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