yak-mapping

yak-mapping is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from mattwynne/yaks. It costs 19 tokens per session (2,830 once invoked), scanned C, original, MIT.

A planning method for discovering the shape of work by approaching a goal and recording the blockers encountered along the way. It uses yaks, which are work items that form a map of the goal.

In plain words
What is it for?
Mapping a new feature or goal, adding related work items one at a time, and finding what must be solved before implementation can proceed.
Why use it?
It helps uncover the real dependencies and obstacles instead of assuming the complete plan is known at the start.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: names the AskUserQuestion tool.

Good fit Mapping a new feature or goal, adding related work items one at a time, and finding what must be solved before implementation can proceed.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/mattwynne/yaks/yak-mapping
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 mattwynne/yaks --skill yak-mapping
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mattwynne/yaks

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 yak-mapping

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mattwynne/yaks/yak-mapping/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mattwynne/yaks/yak-mapping)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mattwynne/yaks/yak-mapping"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mattwynne/yaks/yak-mapping/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 yak-mapping

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mattwynne/yaks/yak-mapping"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mattwynne/yaks/yak-mapping.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 19 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,830 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 1 finding. 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 $0.00019 $0.02830
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.01415
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00566
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00283

Measured 10d ago against content hash c44bdc69efea, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

yak-mapping scanned grade C 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 10d 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.

Recursive force deletehighDestructive command

rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.

- Never: `rm -rf .yaks`, `mkdir .yaks/...`, `cat > .yaks/...`
skills/yak-mapping/SKILL.md · 385 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 385 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Yak Mapping

Overview

Yak mapping is emergent planning through action. You discover work structure by approaching goals and finding what blocks you, not by decomposing from the top down.

Core principle: "It is in the doing of the work that we discover the work that we must do." — Woody Zuill

Announcement

Always start yak mapping by saying:

"I'm using yak-mapping to discover the work structure by approaching the goal. I'll add yaks one at a time and show the map after each addition."

This sets expectations that we're doing emergent discovery, not top-down planning.

When to Use

Use when:

  • User asks you to "plan" or "map out" work using yaks
  • User says "adapt for yaks" or "plan with yaks" or "break down into yaks"
  • User wants to structure work using the yak tool (this project)
  • Starting to structure a new feature or goal
  • Need to break down complex work

NOT for writing plan documents - this creates actual yaks, not markdown plans.

Don't use when:

  • Just executing already-mapped work
  • Single straightforward task
  • User provides detailed step-by-step plan

CRITICAL: Use yx CLI Only

NEVER touch .yaks directory directly!

  • Use: yx add, yx move, yx rm, yx context
  • Never: rm -rf .yaks, mkdir .yaks/..., cat > .yaks/...

This is dogfooding - we use yaks to build yaks.

THE IRON LAW

After EVERY yx add, immediately run yx ls to show what changed.

No exceptions:

  • Not "I'll show it at the end"
  • Not "just adding a quick one"
  • Not "the structure is obvious"

yx add then yx ls is non-negotiable. This keeps the human in sync with your thinking.

The Approach Pattern

Phase 1: Scope the Goal (BEFORE creating child yaks)

After creating the top-level goal yak, have a conversation to agree scope before going deeper. Don't start adding children yet.

  1. Add the goal yak and show the map
  2. Summarise your understanding of the goal back to the human
  3. Present candidate areas you've identified (if any), but as a conversation — NOT as yaks yet
  4. Ask the human to pick what's in scope for now. Use AskUserQuestion or just ask directly.
  5. Only after agreement, start the discovery loop on the agreed scope

Read the full file on GitHub · 385 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. 10d ago First seen · 385 lines · 19 tokens per session scan C c44bdc69efea

Subscribe to this mod's changes

yak-mapping is a skill published in the GitHub repository mattwynne/yaks (58 stars, last pushed 29d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 19 tokens to every session and 2,830 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (recursive force delete). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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