onboard

onboard is a skill for Claude Code from MereWhiplash/engram-cogitator. It costs 43 tokens per session (899 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A session-start guide that gathers a project's saved decisions, lessons, patterns, and development commands from EC, the project's shared memory store. It can also inspect how the code is structured when graphify is enabled.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when joining a project, starting work in an unfamiliar codebase, or asking what you need to know.
Why use it?
It reduces the time needed to understand an existing project and helps avoid repeating past mistakes. It stops if the required project memory system is unavailable.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the cogitation plugin — 20 skills, 1 command, 1 hook shipped together

Good fit Use it when joining a project, starting work in an unfamiliar codebase, or asking what you need to know.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/merewhiplash/engram-cogitator/onboard
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 MereWhiplash/engram-cogitator --skill onboard
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/MereWhiplash/engram-cogitator

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install cogitation, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 20 skills, 1 command, 1 hook.

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 onboard

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/merewhiplash/engram-cogitator/onboard/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/merewhiplash/engram-cogitator/onboard)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/merewhiplash/engram-cogitator/onboard"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/merewhiplash/engram-cogitator/onboard/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 onboard

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/merewhiplash/engram-cogitator/onboard"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/merewhiplash/engram-cogitator/onboard.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 43 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 899 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 $0.00043 $0.00899
Opus 5 $0.00022 $0.00449
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00180
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00090

Measured 10d ago against content hash ab0b9fba870e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

onboard 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 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.

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.

cogitation/skills/onboard/SKILL.md · 141 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 141 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Onboard to Project

Pull institutional knowledge from EC to get context on an existing project.

Announce: "I'm using the onboard skill to pull project context from EC."

The Flow

Verify EC → Load Config → Pull Memories → Summarize → Ready

Step 1: Verify EC Connection

ec_search: test connection

If EC unavailable: Stop. Cannot onboard without EC.

Step 2: Load Project Configuration

ec_search: project config

Extract:

  • Test command
  • Lint command
  • Build command
  • Branch convention

If no config found:

"This project hasn't been initialized for cogitation. Want me to set it up?"

If yes → Use @cog-init

Step 3: Pull All Memories

Search each memory type:

ec_search: type:decision
ec_search: type:learning
ec_search: type:pattern

Step 3.5: Graphify Structural Recon (STRICT when enabled)

Read .cogitation/config.json. If graphify.enabled is true, structural recon is REQUIRED — do not skip it.

  1. Ensure a graph exists (the AST build needs no model, no API key):
    test -f graphify-out/graph.json || graphify update .
    
  2. Orient on structure:
    graphify query "What are the main components and how do they connect?" --budget 800
    
  3. For specific symbols later, use graphify query "..." / graphify explain "<symbol>".

The two sources are complementary: EC = decisions/gotchas/patterns; graphify = code structure/call-graph. Fold both into the briefing. If graphify.enabled is absent or false, skip this step entirely.

Step 4: Categorize and Summarize

Organize findings by area:

Architectural Decisions

List decisions with their rationale. Group by component/area.

Learnings (Gotchas & Workarounds)

List discovered issues and their solutions. Highlight anything that would be costly to rediscover.

Patterns (Conventions)

List established patterns and conventions specific to this project.

Step 5: Present Summary

Format as a briefing:

Read the full file on GitHub · 141 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 · 141 lines · 43 tokens per session scan A ab0b9fba870e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

onboard is a skill published in the GitHub repository MereWhiplash/engram-cogitator (4 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 899 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-08-31.

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