constellatio

constellatio is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from MidnightDarling/collate. It costs 45 tokens per session (1,200 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A historical-analysis tool for subjects that have been interpreted in conflicting ways across different periods. It compares those readings and looks for a lasting tension in the subject that allows them to fit.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to study the reception history of events, people, or texts, compare at least three opposing interpretations, and explain why the subject remains open to repeated reinterpretation.
Why use it?
It separates changes in the historical subject from changes in what later readers needed it to mean.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the collate plugin — 15 skills, 2 commands, 2 agents shipped together

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/midnightdarling/collate/constellatio
Any agent
npx skills add MidnightDarling/collate --skill constellatio
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/MidnightDarling/collate

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install collate, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 15 skills, 2 commands, 2 agents.

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 constellatio

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/midnightdarling/collate/constellatio.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/midnightdarling/collate/constellatio)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/midnightdarling/collate/constellatio"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/midnightdarling/collate/constellatio.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 45 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,200 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00045 $0.01200
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.00600
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00240
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00120

Measured 3d ago against content hash 338bb0819328, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

constellatio 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.

skills/constellatio/SKILL.md · 91 lines

What it actually says

constellatio

这个 skill 做什么

输入一个在历史上被反复征用、各代读法互相矛盾的现象(李鸿章、王安石变法、 鸦片战争、五四),输出两样东西:

  1. 一份接受史分析 — 每个时代怎么读的、为什么这么读、变迁追踪的是读者 还是对象
  2. 一个判断 — 对象内部的什么结构让所有时代的投射都能贴住(屏幕属性)

第二点是这个 skill 在普通接受史之上唯一多做的事。普通接受史告诉你"各代 怎么读了";这个 skill 多问一句:"对象身上什么东西让它能被这样反复读而不 耗尽?"

可选地,分析可以搭配一张暗夜星图 viewer — 同一组事件固定不动,各代的连 法在上面各画一层,让眼睛直接比较散文需要绕着弯说的东西。

输入

Target: $ARGUMENTS

  • 一个现象名(李鸿章五四鸦片战争)→ 从公开材料做
  • 一个 workspace 目录 → 读 <ws>/final.md,当作待诊断的读法之一
  • 一个 .md 文件 → 同上
  • 空 → 问用户哪个现象,以及已经知道哪些互相矛盾的读法

至少三种互相矛盾的读法才值得动这个 skill。不到三种,普通的论证分析就够 了。超过七种,通常是在凑数。

方法

三步。前两步是标准接受史工作,第三步才是这个 skill 的独有贡献。

第一步 · 底图。 列出这个现象里不可压缩的事实 — 无论谁来读都必须处理 的事件、人物、文本。不解读,只列。

第二步 · 每代读法当作诊断。 每一个时代的读法,问的不是"读得对不对", 是"这个时代需要从历史里取走什么来支撑自己的当下"。亮了什么、压暗了什 么、不愿看什么 — 这些是诊断材料。同时追踪:各代读法的变化到底在追踪什 么?几乎从来不是关于对象本身的新发现,通常是读者群体自己的合法性危机在 变。

第三步 · 屏幕属性。 这是这个 skill 唯一真正多做的事。问:对象内部的 什么结构让每一代的投射都能贴住?通常是一个真实存在于对象内部的矛盾(启 蒙 + 救亡同时在场;开明改革 + 帝国困局同时在场)— 不是后人构造的复杂 性,是对象本身的双重结构。找到这个,才能解释为什么这个现象被反复征用而 不耗尽。找不到,就诚实说找不到。

输出

  • workspace 模式 → <workspace>/analysis/{stem}_constellatio.md
  • 单文件模式 → analysis/{stem}_constellatio.md
  • 纯现象模式 → 问用户放哪

散文六段:

  1. 现象 — 名称,不装饰
  2. 不可压缩面 — 每个读法都必须包括的事实
  3. 每代读法的诊断 — 每个时代需要这个现象是什么,以及为什么
  4. 变迁追踪的是什么 — 跨时代变化到底在追踪什么
  5. 屏幕属性 — 对象内部让投射贴住的结构
  6. 当下读法的诚实 — 当代的综合本身也是一种时代读法,不是终审

可选 · 暗夜星图 viewer

当各代读法可以在同一组事件上做明暗对比时,一张星图可以让眼睛直接做散文 需要绕着弯说的比较。

星图不是分析。它把各代的连法摆在视觉上,让读者自己看。诊断、屏幕属性、 变迁追踪 — 这些只在散文里。

做 viewer 时参考 references/viewer-spec.md(美学 + 技术规范)和 references/example-may-fourth.html(canonical 例子)。散文例子见 references/example-may-fourth.md

诚实

  • 只有两种读法且只是互相矛盾 → 不值得用这个 skill
  • 屏幕属性找不到 → 说找不到,不要发明一个对象里不存在的矛盾
  • 没有人提出过的读法不是读法,不要为了凑数而发明立场
  • "无法归结"有时候就是诚实的结论
  • 当代的综合和过去各代一样,是时代读法,不是终审 — 说清楚这件事
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. 3d ago First seen · 91 lines · 45 tokens per session scan A 338bb0819328

Subscribe to this mod's changes

constellatio is a skill published in the GitHub repository MidnightDarling/collate (6 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 45 tokens to every session and 1,200 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.