tracer-bullet

tracer-bullet is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from KaydenClark/LLM_Workbench. It costs 34 tokens per session (758 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A planning method that divides a capability into small end-to-end slices crossing every relevant layer, such as data storage, services, user interface, and automated tests. Each slice should demonstrate one narrow behavior on its own.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to map a project's stack, define vertical implementation slices, order them, and assign work to engineers.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of building separate layers that do not work together until late in the project. Early complete slices expose integration problems sooner.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Good fit Use it to map a project's stack, define vertical implementation slices, order them, and assign work to engineers.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/kaydenclark/llm_workbench/tracer-bullet
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 KaydenClark/LLM_Workbench --skill tracer-bullet
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/KaydenClark/LLM_Workbench

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 tracer-bullet

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kaydenclark/llm_workbench/tracer-bullet/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/kaydenclark/llm_workbench/tracer-bullet)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kaydenclark/llm_workbench/tracer-bullet"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kaydenclark/llm_workbench/tracer-bullet/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 tracer-bullet

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kaydenclark/llm_workbench/tracer-bullet"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kaydenclark/llm_workbench/tracer-bullet.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 34 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 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 $0.00034 $0.00758
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00379
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00152
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00076

Measured today against content hash 239f4ab54600, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

tracer-bullet 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 today.

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.

skills/tracer-bullet/SKILL.md · 72 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 72 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Tracer Bullet

A tracer bullet is a lean but complete slice that pierces every horizontal layer of the stack at once — schema, service, interface, and test — for one narrow behavior. Because it crosses the whole stack, it is demoable on its own and returns end-to-end feedback immediately. A slice that touches one layer is a horizontal shard: it compiles but proves nothing, and integration risk stays hidden until the last shard lands. Fire tracer bullets, not shards into the dark.

Use this discipline when defining a spec's Vertical Implementation Slices, when a proposed slice names only one layer, and before assigning a slice to an Engineer.

When the capability belongs to a v3 project, read workbench/manifest.json before assigning the slice so its durable SPEC.md and evidence paths use the declared lanes.

1. Map the stack

Name the project's real horizontal layers from its own source, not a generic template. Read the nearest AGENTS.md, RUNBOOK.md, and existing source to fix the layer list a finished feature must cross. A web feature usually crosses persistence → service → interface → automated test; a CLI crosses input parsing → core logic → output → test. The map is done when every layer this project's capability must pierce is named for this project.

2. Cut the narrowest complete path

Pick the thinnest end-to-end behavior a user or caller can observe, and cut one slice that crosses every mapped layer for exactly that behavior. Hold the width to one behavior; take full depth through all layers. State each slice as an observable outcome ("a caller saves one record and reads it back"), never as a layer ("add the table").

A sound tracer bullet:

  • Complete path — crosses every layer named in step 1.
  • Demoable alone — its proof is a check Kayden can run in under a minute.
  • One context — fits a single fresh context window; when it will not, cut a thinner behavior, not a horizontal shard.
  • Real seam — verified at a public seam, the way /tdd and /implement drive behavior, not at internal wiring.

Read the full file on GitHub · 72 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. today Changed · -1 lines 239f4ab54600
  2. 3d ago First seen · 73 lines · 34 tokens per session scan A 0b51dc200ab4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

tracer-bullet is a skill published in the GitHub repository KaydenClark/LLM_Workbench (2 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 34 tokens to every session and 758 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-09-07.

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