clerk-clock-skew-jwt

clerk-clock-skew-jwt is a skill for Claude Code from JosiahSiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace. It costs 168 tokens per session (4,679 once invoked), scanned B, original, MIT.

A troubleshooting skill for Clerk authentication tokens whose time claims do not match the verifier's clock. Clerk is an authentication service, and JWTs are signed tokens containing claims such as issued, valid-from, and expiry times.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to diagnose token-not-active-yet, token-expired, nbf, iat, exp, and clockSkewInMs errors, including local time-sync and verifier-leeway settings.
Why use it?
Clock differences between services, containers, WSL2, or Docker Desktop can make valid tokens appear too early or already expired.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the clerk-auth-master plugin — 4 skills, 1 agent shipped together

Good fit Use it to diagnose token-not-active-yet, token-expired, nbf, iat, exp, and clockSkewInMs errors, including local time-sync and verifier-leeway settings.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/josiahsiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace/clerk-clock-skew-jwt
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 JosiahSiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace --skill clerk-clock-skew-jwt
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JosiahSiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install clerk-auth-master, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 4 skills, 1 agent.

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 clerk-clock-skew-jwt

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/josiahsiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace/clerk-clock-skew-jwt/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/josiahsiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace/clerk-clock-skew-jwt)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/josiahsiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace/clerk-clock-skew-jwt"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/josiahsiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace/clerk-clock-skew-jwt/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 clerk-clock-skew-jwt

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/josiahsiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace/clerk-clock-skew-jwt"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/josiahsiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace/clerk-clock-skew-jwt.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 168 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,679 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. 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 $0.00168 $0.04679
Opus 5 $0.00084 $0.02339
Sonnet 5 $0.00034 $0.00936
Haiku 4.5 $0.00017 $0.00468

Measured 12d ago against content hash 5a91fb63eb51, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

clerk-clock-skew-jwt scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 12d 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.

Asks for rootmediumPrivilege escalation

A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.

sudo hwclock -s # sync to hardware clock (may also be stale)
plugins/clerk-auth-master/skills/clerk-clock-skew-jwt/SKILL.md · 381 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 381 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Clerk JWT and Clock Skew

Overview

Clerk session tokens and custom JWT templates are signed JSON Web Tokens. The verifier always checks three time-based claims:

Claim Meaning Failure error
iat (issued at) When the token was minted (rare) invalid-iat or iat must be in the past
nbf (not before) Earliest moment the token is valid token-not-active-yet (Clerk error reason)
exp (expiration) Latest moment the token is valid token-expired (Clerk error reason)

Clock skew occurs when the verifier's wall clock is offset from the issuer's wall clock. If the verifier is behind, even freshly minted tokens fail nbf. If the verifier is ahead, long-lived tokens can fail exp early. Both directions break auth.

Clerk's own backend SDK applies a small tolerance (clockSkewInMs default 5000 ms) and the Dashboard exposes a session-level "Allowed Clock Skew" / nbf offset setting for JWT templates. Third-party libraries used to verify Clerk-issued JWTs have their own leeway settings; the safe defaults differ by library.

Time Claims in Clerk Tokens

A decoded Clerk session token typically contains numeric epoch-second values for iat, nbf, and exp. Decode the JWT (without verification) at a tool like jwt.io to inspect them when diagnosing failures.

The verifier must check nbf <= now + leeway and exp >= now - leeway. A token that is "active" must satisfy both bounds. If nbf > now even by one second, the token is rejected with token-not-active-yet. If exp < now, the token is rejected with token-expired.

iat is informational; most libraries do not require it. Clerk's tokens do include iat, and some libraries (for example golang-jwt/jwt v5) require WithIssuedAt() to enable iat validation.

Clerk SDK Clock Skew Configuration

Clerk's verifyToken() (in @clerk/backend, @clerk/nextjs/server, and equivalent) accepts a clockSkewInMs option. Documented default: 5000 (5 seconds). The same option is exposed to authenticateRequest for HTTP requests.

Read the full file on GitHub · 381 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. 12d ago First seen · 381 lines · 168 tokens per session scan B 5a91fb63eb51

Subscribe to this mod's changes

clerk-clock-skew-jwt is a skill published in the GitHub repository JosiahSiegel/claude-plugin-marketplace (54 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 168 tokens to every session and 4,679 once invoked, about $0.0008 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (asks for root). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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