dependency-updates

A process for reviewing outdated software dependencies, such as libraries, container images, databases, and deployment tools, before updating them.

In plain words
What is it for?
It discovers outdated packages or tools, checks their release notes and usage, groups compatible updates, and verifies changes with tests, rebuilds, smoke checks, or staging as appropriate.
Why use it?
It helps identify unsafe updates and account for the extra risks of minor, major, and infrastructure changes.

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/mitodl/agent-kit/dependency-updates
Any agent
npx skills add mitodl/agent-kit --skill dependency-updates
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mitodl/agent-kit

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 137 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,042 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 $0.00137 $0.04042
Opus 5 $0.00068 $0.02021
Sonnet 5 $0.00027 $0.00808
Haiku 4.5 $0.00014 $0.00404

Measured yesterday against content hash a8633fb5a68e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

dependency-updates 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 yesterday.

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/process/dependency-updates/SKILL.md · 405 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 405 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Dependency Updates

Scope

Layer Examples
Language library / framework Python packages, npm packages, Go modules, Ruby gems, Cargo crates, Maven artifacts
Container base image FROM python:3.9-slim3.12-slim, ubuntu:20.0424.04, distroless variants
System / OS packages apt-get install, Alpine apk, Homebrew brew in CI
Helm / Kubernetes charts Bitnami charts, operator Helm releases, CRD-carrying chart upgrades
Database / storage PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, MongoDB — via Helm, Docker Compose, or operators
Infrastructure tooling Terraform providers, Pulumi SDKs, OpenTofu modules

Effort sizing

Bump Library Infra / DB Base image
Patch (x.y.z) Changelog skim + test run Changelog skim + test run Rebuild + smoke
Minor (x.y.0) Changelog + usage check + test Changelog + values diff + test Rebuild + smoke test
Major (x.0.0) Full Phase 1–6 Full Phase 1–6 + staging Full Phase 1–6 + rebuild
Digest / date pin Rebuild + smoke N/A Rebuild + smoke

Phase 0 — Discover what is outdated

When you don't have an automated tool handing you a list, generate it yourself. Run the appropriate command for each ecosystem present in the project.

Python

uv pip list --outdated      # uv projects (installed packages vs latest)
pip list --outdated         # pip-managed environments
pip-audit                   # combined outdated + known vulnerabilities

JavaScript / TypeScript

npm outdated                # shows current / wanted / latest per package
bun outdated                # Bun 1.1.0+; use `bunx npm-check-updates` on older Bun
yarn outdated               # yarn classic
pnpm outdated               # pnpm
npm audit                   # known vulnerabilities

Go

go list -m -u all           # shows available updates for every module in go.mod
govulncheck ./...           # known vulnerabilities in the dependency graph

Read the full file on GitHub · 405 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file 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. yesterday First seen · 405 lines · 137 tokens per session scan A a8633fb5a68e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

dependency-updates is a skill published in the GitHub repository mitodl/agent-kit (2 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed BSD-3-Clause. It adds 137 tokens to every session and 4,042 once invoked, about $0.0007 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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