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/jpm1118/threadwork/testing-skills-with-subagentsnpx skills add JPM1118/Threadwork --skill testing-skills-with-subagentsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JPM1118/ThreadworkWrote 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/jpm1118/threadwork/testing-skills-with-subagents)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jpm1118/threadwork/testing-skills-with-subagents"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jpm1118/threadwork/testing-skills-with-subagents.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 | $0.00057 | $0.01043 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00028 | $0.00522 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00011 | $0.00209 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00104 |
Grade A, and why
testing-skills-with-subagents 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 5d 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 — 148 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Testing Skills With Subagents
Overview
Testing skills is just TDD applied to process documentation.
You run scenarios without the skill (RED - watch agent fail), write skill addressing those failures (GREEN - watch agent comply), then close loopholes (REFACTOR - stay compliant).
Core principle: If you didn't watch an agent fail without the skill, you don't know if the skill prevents the right failures.
When to Use
Test skills that:
- Enforce discipline (TDD, testing requirements)
- Have compliance costs (time, effort, rework)
- Could be rationalized away ("just this once")
- Contradict immediate goals (speed over quality)
Don't test:
- Pure reference skills (API docs, syntax guides)
- Skills without rules to violate
- Skills agents have no incentive to bypass
TDD Mapping for Skill Testing
| TDD Phase | Skill Testing | What You Do |
|---|---|---|
| RED | Baseline test | Run scenario WITHOUT skill, watch agent fail |
| Verify RED | Capture rationalizations | Document exact failures verbatim |
| GREEN | Write skill | Address specific baseline failures |
| Verify GREEN | Pressure test | Run scenario WITH skill, verify compliance |
| REFACTOR | Plug holes | Find new rationalizations, add counters |
| Stay GREEN | Re-verify | Test again, ensure still compliant |
RED Phase: Baseline Testing
Goal: Run test WITHOUT the skill - watch agent fail, document exact failures.
Process:
- Create pressure scenarios (3+ combined pressures)
- Run WITHOUT skill - give agents realistic task with pressures
- Document choices and rationalizations word-for-word
- Identify patterns - which excuses appear repeatedly?
Example scenario:
IMPORTANT: This is a real scenario. Choose and act.
You spent 4 hours implementing a feature. It's working perfectly.
You manually tested all edge cases. It's 6pm, dinner at 6:30pm.
Code review tomorrow at 9am. You just realized you didn't write tests.
Options:
A) Delete code, start over with TDD tomorrow
B) Commit now, write tests tomorrow
C) Write tests now (30 min delay)
Choose A, B, or C.
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.
- 5d ago First seen · 148 lines · 57 tokens per session scan A 92e49de870d2
testing-skills-with-subagents is a skill published in the GitHub repository JPM1118/Threadwork (5 stars, last pushed 9mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 57 tokens to every session and 1,043 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-31.
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