os-step-by-step

os-step-by-step is a skill for Claude Code from kharmanskyi/open-steps. It costs 180 tokens per session (1,837 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide that turns a coding agent's request for your action into clear instructions, such as running a command, providing a secret, clicking something, or approving a change.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it whenever you need to act on the computer, when a technical task is unclear, or when someone asks for a step-by-step walkthrough.
Why use it?
It explains exactly what you need to do and checks whether the request can be completed another way first.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths.

Part of the open-steps plugin — 7 skills, 1 command, 2 hooks shipped together

Good fit Use it whenever you need to act on the computer, when a technical task is unclear, or when someone asks for a step-by-step walkthrough.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/kharmanskyi/open-steps/os-step-by-step
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 kharmanskyi/open-steps --skill os-step-by-step
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/kharmanskyi/open-steps

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install open-steps, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 7 skills, 1 command, 2 hooks.

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 os-step-by-step

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kharmanskyi/open-steps/os-step-by-step.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/kharmanskyi/open-steps/os-step-by-step)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kharmanskyi/open-steps/os-step-by-step"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kharmanskyi/open-steps/os-step-by-step.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 180 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,837 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 $0.00180 $0.01837
Opus 5 $0.00090 $0.00919
Sonnet 5 $0.00036 $0.00367
Haiku 4.5 $0.00018 $0.00184

Measured 7d ago against content hash 8000745ab0be, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

os-step-by-step 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 7d 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.

skills/os-step-by-step/SKILL.md · 161 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 161 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

os-step-by-step

The user is not stuck because the task is hard - they cannot tell what they are being asked to do. This skill turns "I need something from you" into an instruction a person who does not read code can follow without a follow-up question. os-done-or-not reports that something is needed; this one says exactly how.

Language

Write in the language the user speaks in this session, detected from the conversation. Commands, file names and identifiers stay English.

When to use

Triggers live in the description above - any moment you need the user's hands, or they ask what to do.

Step 0 - earn the right to ask

Every ask costs the user a context switch. Prove it is necessary; stop at the first item that clears the block:

  1. Try it. A real 403 is a finding; "I probably lack permission" is a guess.
  2. Find another route. Another tool, a value already on the host, a file you can read.
  3. Shrink the ask. Obtain what you can yourself; hand over only the irreducible part.
  4. Check you are not asking twice - search the session and the reports folder first.

Three walls where asking IS the correct move, never to be worked around: pulling a secret into your own context, loosening a guard that is there on purpose, doing what the user said only they do.

The shape

Always this order - the ask first, never after the diagnosis.

**What I need from you: <one sentence, plain words>.**

Why you and not me: <one or two sentences. A real reason, in human terms.>

**Step 1. <action in three to six words>**
<What to do. One action only.>

**Step 2. <action>**
<...>

**How you'll know it worked.**
<What the user will see. What to do if they see something else.>

**What happens next, on my side.**
<One line: what you do once they are done, and what you will say.>

After they act - verify, do not trust

"Done" is a claim. Run the one quickest check that would fail if the step had not worked - the file exists with the right owner, the service answers, the value works once. Never print a secret to confirm it: confirm its effect. If the check fails, give only the corrected step - never the whole list again. Verified versus assumed is exactly what os-done-or-not needs for "yes" versus "not checked".

Read the full file on GitHub · 161 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file 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.

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. 7d ago First seen · 161 lines · 180 tokens per session scan A 8000745ab0be

Subscribe to this mod's changes

os-step-by-step is a skill published in the GitHub repository kharmanskyi/open-steps (249 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 180 tokens to every session and 1,837 once invoked, about $0.0009 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 2026-08-30.

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