using-superpowers

A rule for starting conversations by checking which available skills apply and invoking them before responding.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it as a process guide when working with a collection of coding-agent skills.
Why use it?
It helps ensure relevant task-specific instructions are followed instead of being overlooked.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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/mdcms-ai/mdcms/using-superpowers
Any agent
npx skills add mdcms-ai/mdcms --skill using-superpowers
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mdcms-ai/mdcms

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 29 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,298 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 91% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00029 $0.01298
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.00649
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00260
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00130

Measured 2d ago against content hash 316e29381219, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

using-superpowers 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 2d 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

This is a copy

91% identical to using-superpowers — 4 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.ai/skills/using-superpowers/SKILL.md · 118 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 118 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

IF A SKILL APPLIES TO YOUR TASK, YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE. YOU MUST USE IT.

This is not negotiable. This is not optional. You cannot rationalize your way out of this.

Instruction Priority

Superpowers skills override default system prompt behavior, but user instructions always take precedence:

  1. User's explicit instructions (CLAUDE.md, GEMINI.md, AGENTS.md, direct requests) — highest priority
  2. Superpowers skills — override default system behavior where they conflict
  3. Default system prompt — lowest priority

If CLAUDE.md, GEMINI.md, or AGENTS.md says "don't use TDD" and a skill says "always use TDD," follow the user's instructions. The user is in control.

How to Access Skills

In Claude Code: Use the Skill tool. When you invoke a skill, its content is loaded and presented to you—follow it directly. Never use the Read tool on skill files.

In Copilot CLI: Use the skill tool. Skills are auto-discovered from installed plugins. The skill tool works the same as Claude Code's Skill tool.

In Gemini CLI: Skills activate via the activate_skill tool. Gemini loads skill metadata at session start and activates the full content on demand.

In other environments: Check your platform's documentation for how skills are loaded.

Platform Adaptation

Skills use Claude Code tool names. Non-CC platforms: see references/copilot-tools.md (Copilot CLI), references/codex-tools.md (Codex) for tool equivalents. Gemini CLI users get the tool mapping loaded automatically via GEMINI.md.

Using Skills

The Rule

Invoke relevant or requested skills BEFORE any response or action. Even a 1% chance a skill might apply means that you should invoke the skill to check. If an invoked skill turns out to be wrong for the situation, you don't need to use it.

Read the full file on GitHub · 118 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 files 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. 2d ago First seen · 118 lines · 29 tokens per session scan A 316e29381219

Subscribe to this mod's changes

using-superpowers is a skill published in the GitHub repository mdcms-ai/mdcms (22 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 29 tokens to every session and 1,298 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 91% identical to using-superpowers, differing in 4 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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