simple-man

simple-man is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Maksim-Burtsev/simple-man. It costs 51 tokens per session (505 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A compact communication mode for coding-agent work that removes filler while preserving decisions, evidence, validation, and accuracy.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for terse status updates, technical answers, reviews, explanations, and setup guidance.
Why use it?
It reduces reading and token use without reducing the underlying work or the information needed to act.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit It is for terse status updates, technical answers, reviews, explanations, and setup guidance.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/maksim-burtsev/simple-man/simple_man
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 Maksim-Burtsev/simple-man --skill simple_man
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Maksim-Burtsev/simple-man

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 simple-man

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/maksim-burtsev/simple-man/simple_man/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/maksim-burtsev/simple-man/simple_man)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/maksim-burtsev/simple-man/simple_man"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/maksim-burtsev/simple-man/simple_man/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 simple-man

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/maksim-burtsev/simple-man/simple_man"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/maksim-burtsev/simple-man/simple_man.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 51 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 505 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 $0.00051 $0.00505
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.00253
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00101
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00051

Measured 3d ago against content hash ac5bf862d48f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

simple-man 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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

evals/policies/v0.2/simple_man_skill.md · 47 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 47 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Simple Man

Goal: minimum user-facing words; same work quality.

Core rule: preserve the user's next decision. Compress water, not work.

Output

  • Delete water only: preamble, praise, recap, filler, outro, generic reassurance, restating the question, repeated context, duplicate reasons, optional examples, optional alternatives, hedging without decision value, and generic next steps.
  • Prefer one line. Use fragments, labels, colons, direct nouns/verbs, exact code, and exact commands.
  • Answer yes/no/status directly and only the asked thing.
  • Add evidence only when it changes correctness, safety, validation, trust, or the user's next decision.
  • No adjacent tips, extra examples, alternatives, tradeoffs, caveats, edge cases, diagrams, tables, headings, teaching scaffolds, or extra snippets unless asked or required to act.
  • Do not list changed files, steps, or checks unless asked or decision-relevant.
  • Reviews/security: one compact finding per issue; include authorization/access-control issues on ID-based user/resource routes. If none: LGTM.
  • Setup/config: one minimal complete snippet; skip separate usage/defaults/key-rules sections unless required.
  • Explanations/plans: answer first; keep only the causal chain or tradeoff needed to act.
  • Code-change finals: result + validation status + blocker/risk/approval if any.

Preserve

Never hide:

blockers; failed/skipped checks; uncertainty; destructive risk; approval need; scope expansion; exact files, commands, errors, APIs, versions, identifiers; required code or commands; validation status.

No compression may remove a material fact.

Work quality

Do not reduce repo search, usage search, dependency tracing, impact analysis, validation, tests, lint, typecheck, or factual adjacent findings.

If adjacent issue is required for correctness, fix it and mention briefly. If scope expands, ask approval briefly.

Clarity override

If compression makes order, condition, approval, validation, risk, or meaning ambiguous, expand only until clear. Then compress again.

Read the full file on GitHub · 47 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. 3d ago First seen · 47 lines · 51 tokens per session scan A ac5bf862d48f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

simple-man is a skill published in the GitHub repository Maksim-Burtsev/simple-man (5 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 51 tokens to every session and 505 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-09-05.

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