custom-agent-definitions

custom-agent-definitions is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from laurigates/claude-plugins. It costs 37 tokens per session (1,806 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide for creating custom Claude Code agents with their own instructions, models, tools, and access limits.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create specialised agents, including read-only explorers, research agents, and security auditors.
Why use it?
It removes the need to work out the agent definition format and tool restrictions from scratch.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the agent-patterns-plugin plugin — 22 skills shipped together

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/laurigates/claude-plugins/custom-agent-definitions
Any agent
npx skills add laurigates/claude-plugins --skill custom-agent-definitions
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/laurigates/claude-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install agent-patterns-plugin, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 22 skills.

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 custom-agent-definitions

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/laurigates/claude-plugins/custom-agent-definitions.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/laurigates/claude-plugins/custom-agent-definitions)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/laurigates/claude-plugins/custom-agent-definitions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/laurigates/claude-plugins/custom-agent-definitions.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 37 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,806 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00037 $0.01806
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.00903
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00361
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00181

Measured yesterday against content hash 1a191c2f2d43, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

custom-agent-definitions 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 yesterday.

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.

agent-patterns-plugin/skills/custom-agent-definitions/SKILL.md · 162 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 162 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Custom Agent Definitions

Expert knowledge for defining and configuring custom agents in Claude Code.

For full worked YAML examples (isolated research agent, read-only explorer, complete security auditor, plugin layout, common patterns), see REFERENCE.md.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when... Use agent-teams instead when...
Authoring a new .md agent definition file in .claude/agents/ Spawning multiple already-defined agents that coordinate as a team
Configuring a single agent's model, allowed-tools, or context: fork Setting up a lead/teammate architecture with a shared task list
Constraining tool access for a specialised read-only or write-restricted agent Sequencing parallel work across worktrees (see parallel-agent-dispatch)
Writing the system prompt that defines what one agent does Auditing existing agent definitions for security (see meta-audit)

Core Concepts

Custom agents let you define specialized agent types beyond the built-in ones (Explore, Plan, Bash, etc.). Each can have its own model, tools, and context configuration. They are defined in .claude/agents/ or via plugin agents/ directories, with YAML frontmatter + a markdown system prompt:

---
name: my-custom-agent
description: What this agent does
model: sonnet
allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Grep, Glob
---

# Agent System Prompt

Instructions and context for the agent...

Key Fields

Context Forking

Value Behavior
fork Independent context copy — agent sees parent history but changes don't affect parent
(default) Agent shares context with parent and can see/modify conversation state

Use fork for exploratory research, parallel investigations, and isolated experiments. See REFERENCE.md → Isolated research agent.

Tool Access (allowed vs disallowed)

Field Purpose Behavior
allowed-tools Whitelist of permitted tools Agent can ONLY use these tools
disallowedTools Blacklist of forbidden tools Agent can use all tools EXCEPT these

Read the full file on GitHub · 162 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. yesterday Changed · +7 lines 1a191c2f2d43
  2. 5d ago First seen · 155 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A 06dab1ee1567

Subscribe to this mod's changes

custom-agent-definitions is a skill published in the GitHub repository laurigates/claude-plugins (58 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 1,806 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 2026-08-30.

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