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 latestaiagents/agent-skills --skill skill-activation-patternsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/latestaiagents/agent-skillsWrote 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/latestaiagents/agent-skills/skill-activation-patterns)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/latestaiagents/agent-skills/skill-activation-patterns"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/latestaiagents/agent-skills/skill-activation-patterns.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 5.1 | $0.00099 | $0.01502 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00049 | $0.00751 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00020 | $0.00300 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00010 | $0.00150 |
Grade A, and why
skill-activation-patterns 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 3d 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 — 184 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Skill Activation Patterns
A skill that fires at the wrong time is as useless as one that never fires. Design activation like you'd design a cron expression: specific, testable, boundaried.
When to Use
- Debugging skills that don't fire
- Two skills claiming the same trigger
- Skills firing on unrelated queries
- Designing a new suite with multiple related skills
The Activation Signal Stack
The model matches your skill against user queries using:
- Name — weak signal
- Description first sentence — strong signal, this is the "what"
- "Use this skill when" line — strongest signal, the "when"
- "Activate when" keyword list — pattern match against query phrases
Invest most in (3) and (4).
Four Activation Patterns
1. Error-Driven
Skill fires when user pastes or describes an error:
description: |
Decode Java stack traces and suggest root causes.
Use this skill when user shares a stack trace, exception, or runtime error in Java.
Activate when: Exception, NullPointerException, stack trace, Caused by, Java error, runtime crash.
Include the literal tokens that appear in errors. Users paste them verbatim.
2. Intent-Driven
Skill fires when user expresses a goal:
description: |
Refactor code to extract methods, rename, and improve structure without changing behavior.
Use this skill when user asks to refactor, clean up, or restructure existing code.
Activate when: refactor, clean up, extract method, rename, restructure, DRY up, improve this code.
Match imperative verbs and goal phrases.
3. Tool/Technology-Driven
Skill fires when the user mentions a specific tool:
description: |
Configure Next.js App Router — server components, server actions, middleware, caching.
Use this skill when the user is working with Next.js App Router, specifically app/ directory routes.
Activate when: Next.js, App Router, server component, server action, app/ directory, use server.
Name the technology and its key concepts; matches work well.
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.
- 3d ago First seen · 184 lines · 99 tokens per session scan A 1805e7add5d5
skill-activation-patterns is a skill published in the GitHub repository latestaiagents/agent-skills (5 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 99 tokens to every session and 1,502 once invoked, about $0.0005 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 2026-09-03.
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