search-first

search-first is a skill for Claude Code from loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes. It costs 29 tokens per session (1,522 once invoked), scanned B, original, MIT.

A research-first workflow that searches for existing tools, libraries, and patterns before custom code is written.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for investigating available solutions, comparing candidates, and deciding whether to reuse something or build it.
Why use it?
It helps prevent unnecessary implementations and supports more informed choices about dependencies and integrations.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths; mentions Claude Code.

Part of the awesome-claude-notes plugin — 106 skills, 61 commands, 28 agents shipped together

Good fit It is for investigating available solutions, comparing candidates, and deciding whether to reuse something or build it.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes/search-first
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 loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes --skill search-first
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install awesome-claude-notes, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 106 skills, 61 commands, 28 agents.

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 search-first

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes/search-first/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes/search-first)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes/search-first"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes/search-first/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 search-first

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes/search-first"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes/search-first.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 29 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,522 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 4 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Agent Snooping · line 67
    Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.
    Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
  • medium Agent Snooping · line 4
    Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.
    Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
  • medium Agent Snooping · line 165
    Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.
    Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
  • medium Excessive Agency · line 159
    Skill enables autonomous high-impact decisions without human-in-the-loop verification. Critical operations (destructive commands, financial transactions, data deletion) should require explicit user confirmation.
    Fix: Add human-in-the-loop confirmation for destructive, irreversible, or high-impact operations. Never auto-execute commands that modify files, send data, or alter system state.
How audits are shown
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 $0.00029 $0.01522
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.00761
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00304
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00152

Measured 6d ago against content hash 308068384e65, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

search-first scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 6d 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.

Reads agent configuration directoriesmediumAgent snooping

.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/ hold keys, settings and other credentials a mod has no legitimate need for.

2. Is there an MCP for this? → Check `~/.claude/settings.json` and search
Origin

Copies of this mod

4 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

docs/ja-JP/skills/search-first/SKILL.md · 171 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 171 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/search-first — Research Before You Code

Systematizes the "search for existing solutions before implementing" workflow.

Trigger

Use this skill when:

  • Starting a new feature that likely has existing solutions
  • Adding a dependency or integration
  • The user asks "add X functionality" and you're about to write code
  • Before creating a new utility, helper, or abstraction

Workflow

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  1. NEED ANALYSIS                           │
│     Define what functionality is needed      │
│     Identify language/framework constraints  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  2. PARALLEL SEARCH (researcher agent)      │
│     ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐  │
│     │  npm /   │ │  MCP /   │ │  GitHub / │  │
│     │  PyPI    │ │  Skills  │ │  Web      │  │
│     └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  3. EVALUATE                                │
│     Score candidates (functionality, maint, │
│     community, docs, license, deps)         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  4. DECIDE                                  │
│     ┌─────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌─────────┐  │
│     │  Adopt  │  │  Extend  │  │  Build   │  │
│     │ as-is   │  │  /Wrap   │  │  Custom  │  │
│     └─────────┘  └──────────┘  └─────────┘  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  5. IMPLEMENT                               │
│     Install package / Configure MCP /       │
│     Write minimal custom code               │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Decision Matrix

Signal Action
Exact match, well-maintained, MIT/Apache Adopt — install and use directly
Partial match, good foundation Extend — install + write thin wrapper
Multiple weak matches Compose — combine 2-3 small packages
Nothing suitable found Build — write custom, but informed by research

How to Use

Quick Mode (inline)

Read the full file on GitHub · 171 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. 6d ago First seen · 171 lines · 29 tokens per session scan B 308068384e65

Subscribe to this mod's changes

search-first is a skill published in the GitHub repository loulanyue/awesome-claude-notes (270 stars, last pushed 6d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 29 tokens to every session and 1,522 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (reads agent configuration directories). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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