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 agentmods add skills/mateaix/mateclaw/spikenpx skills add mateaix/mateclaw --skill spikegit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mateaix/mateclawWhat 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 | $0.00013 | $0.02112 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00006 | $0.01056 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00003 | $0.00422 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00001 | $0.00211 |
Grade A, and why
spike 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.
Copies of this mod
1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:
- spike — 94% identical, 27 lines differ
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 202 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Spike
Use this skill when the user wants to feel out an idea before committing to a real build — validating feasibility, comparing approaches, or surfacing unknowns that no amount of research will answer. Spikes are disposable by design. Throw them away once they've paid their debt.
Load this when the user says things like "let me try this", "I want to see if X works", "spike this out", "before I commit to Y", "quick prototype of Z", "is this even possible?", or "compare A vs B".
When NOT to use this
- The answer is knowable from docs or reading code — just do research, don't build
- The work is production path — use
writing-plans/planinstead - The idea is already validated — jump straight to implementation
If the user has the full GSD system installed
If gsd-spike shows up as a sibling skill (installed via npx get-shit-done-cc --the agent), prefer gsd-spike when the user wants the full GSD workflow: persistent .planning/spikes/ state, MANIFEST tracking across sessions, Given/When/Then verdict format, and commit patterns that integrate with the rest of GSD. This skill is the lightweight standalone version for users who don't have (or don't want) the full system.
Core method
Regardless of scale, every spike follows this loop:
decompose → research → build → verdict
↑__________________________________________↓
iterate on findings
1. Decompose
Break the user's idea into 2-5 independent feasibility questions. Each question is one spike. Present them as a table with Given/When/Then framing:
| # | Spike | Validates (Given/When/Then) | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | websocket-streaming | Given a WS connection, when LLM streams tokens, then client receives chunks < 100ms | High |
| 002a | pdf-parse-pdfjs | Given a multi-page PDF, when parsed with pdfjs, then structured text is extractable | Medium |
| 002b | pdf-parse-camelot | Given a multi-page PDF, when parsed with camelot, then structured text is extractable | Medium |
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 · 202 lines · 13 tokens per session scan A d1b495d8915b
spike is a skill published in the GitHub repository mateaix/mateclaw (1,061 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 13 tokens to every session and 2,112 once invoked, about $0.0001 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.
Other skills, from other repositories
rapid-prototyping
Use this skill to build disposable, rapid proof-of-concept prototypes and spikes to test feasibility, validate API designs, or explore library capabilities before committing to a full production architecture.
spike
Time-boxed technical investigation to reduce uncertainty before committing to an approach.
poc-spike
Conduct a proof-of-concept or technical spike to de-risk unknowns identified during design. Use when the implementation sketch flags high-risk items, when a technology choice needs validation, when integration feasibility is uncertain, or when someone asks to "spike", "prototype", "prove out", or "validate the…
make-skill
Use this skill when sedimenting a session into a reusable workspace skill. Triggers when the user wants to turn the current conversation, workflow, or troubleshooting path into a SKILL.md. Phrases like 'turn this into a skill', 'remember how I did X', 'save this workflow', 'make a skill from this', and any /make-skill…
make-skill
用于把当前会话沉淀为可复用的 workspace skill。当用户希望把当前对话、工作流或排错路径写成 SKILL.md 时触发。触发表达包括「把这个变成 skill」「记住我是怎么做 X 的」「保存这个工作流」「make a skill from this」以及任何 /make-skill 调用。.
terraform-skill
Use when working with Terraform or OpenTofu - creating modules, writing tests (native test framework, Terratest), setting up CI/CD pipelines, reviewing configurations, choosing between testing approaches, debugging state issues, implementing security scanning (trivy, checkov), or making infrastructure-as-code…