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 Kastalien-Research/thoughtbox --skill crafting-effective-readmesgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Kastalien-Research/thoughtboxWrote 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/kastalien-research/thoughtbox/crafting-effective-readmes)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kastalien-research/thoughtbox/crafting-effective-readmes"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kastalien-research/thoughtbox/crafting-effective-readmes/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/kastalien-research/thoughtbox/crafting-effective-readmes"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kastalien-research/thoughtbox/crafting-effective-readmes.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 | $0.00035 | $0.00630 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00014 | $0.00252 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00007 | $0.00126 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00003 | $0.00063 |
Grade A, and why
crafting-effective-readmes 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.
This is a copy
100% identical to crafting-effective-readmes — 0 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 79 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Crafting Effective READMEs
Overview
READMEs answer questions your audience will have. Different audiences need different information - a contributor to an OSS project needs different context than future-you opening a config folder.
Always ask: Who will read this, and what do they need to know?
Process
Step 1: Identify the Task
Ask: "What README task are you working on?"
| Task | When |
|---|---|
| Creating | New project, no README yet |
| Adding | Need to document something new |
| Updating | Capabilities changed, content is stale |
| Reviewing | Checking if README is still accurate |
Step 2: Task-Specific Questions
Creating initial README:
- What type of project? (see Project Types below)
- What problem does this solve in one sentence?
- What's the quickest path to "it works"?
- Anything notable to highlight?
Adding a section:
- What needs documenting?
- Where should it go in the existing structure?
- Who needs this info most?
Updating existing content:
- What changed?
- Read current README, identify stale sections
- Propose specific edits
Reviewing/refreshing:
- Read current README
- Check against actual project state (package.json, main files, etc.)
- Flag outdated sections
- Update "Last reviewed" date if present
Step 3: Always Ask
After drafting, ask: "Anything else to highlight or include that I might have missed?"
Project Types
| Type | Audience | Key Sections | Template |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Source | Contributors, users worldwide | Install, Usage, Contributing, License | templates/oss.md |
| Personal | Future you, portfolio viewers | What it does, Tech stack, Learnings | templates/personal.md |
| Internal | Teammates, new hires | Setup, Architecture, Runbooks | templates/internal.md |
| Config | Future you (confused) | What's here, Why, How to extend, Gotchas | templates/xdg-config.md |
Ask the user if unclear. Don't assume OSS defaults for everything.
What ships with it
12 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
- references/art-of-readme.md 24 KB
- references/make-a-readme.md 6.5 KB
- references/standard-readme-example-maximal.md 1.5 KB
- references/standard-readme-example-minimal.md 169 B
- references/standard-readme-spec.md 9.6 KB
- section-checklist.md 680 B
- style-guide.md 434 B
- templates/internal.md 1.9 KB
- templates/oss.md 1.6 KB
- templates/personal.md 1.1 KB
- templates/xdg-config.md 1.4 KB
- using-references.md 1.3 KB
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 · 79 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A 638b271fdc14
crafting-effective-readmes is a skill published in the GitHub repository Kastalien-Research/thoughtbox (65 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 630 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to crafting-effective-readmes, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.
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