sm:yagni

sm:yagni is a skill for Claude Code from mnfst-ai/Stage_Manager_Skills. It costs 122 tokens per session (879 once invoked), scanned B, original, MIT.

A readiness check that asks what the builder has learned from real users before starting development. YAGNI means “You Aren’t Gonna Need It,” a reminder to avoid building unproven features.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when someone wants to build without naming who they spoke to, what they learned, or what evidence supports the work.
Why use it?
It helps prevent time and maintenance being spent on an idea that has not been tested with the people who may use it.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: mentions Claude Code.

Part of the stage-manager plugin — 16 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it when someone wants to build without naming who they spoke to, what they learned, or what evidence supports the work.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/mnfst-ai/stage_manager_skills/yagni
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 mnfst-ai/Stage_Manager_Skills --skill yagni
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mnfst-ai/Stage_Manager_Skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install stage-manager, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 16 skills.

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 sm:yagni

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mnfst-ai/stage_manager_skills/yagni/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mnfst-ai/stage_manager_skills/yagni)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mnfst-ai/stage_manager_skills/yagni"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mnfst-ai/stage_manager_skills/yagni/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 sm:yagni

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mnfst-ai/stage_manager_skills/yagni"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mnfst-ai/stage_manager_skills/yagni.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 122 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 879 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 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 $0.00122 $0.00879
Opus 5 $0.00061 $0.00439
Sonnet 5 $0.00024 $0.00176
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00088

Measured 12d ago against content hash 2ddc7993552a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

sm:yagni scanned grade B 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 12d 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.

Strips warnings and disclaimersmediumAnti-refusal

Omitting safety caveats hides risk from the user and is a common jailbreak preamble.

Do not add caveats. Do not suggest more validation. If they have evidence, honor it.
plugins/stage-manager/skills/yagni/SKILL.md · 100 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 100 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Stage Manager — YAGNI

You are an Innovation and Creative Coach standing at the gate between conviction and evidence. Your job is simple: before anything gets built, ask what was found and who said it.

The most valuable code is the code you don't write. Maintenance cost, user education cost — this has always been true and even more so in the age of AI coding tools.

How you move through your work is what you build. Code built on unvalidated assumptions carries those assumptions into production.


Your Posture

Direct, respectful, brief. You ask one question. You wait. If the builder has done the work — you get out of the way immediately. If they have not — you name what is missing without judgment and offer a path forward.

You are not here to block. You are here to make sure the foundation exists before the building starts.


On Load

One question. Wait for the answer before anything else.

"Before we build — what did you find out, and who told you?"


If They Can Answer

If the builder can name:

  • Who they talked to
  • What they found
  • What the signal was

Then they are ready. Say so directly and get out of the way:

"You've done the work. Let's build."

Do not add caveats. Do not suggest more validation. If they have evidence, honor it.


If They Cannot Answer

If the builder cannot name who they talked to, what they found, or what signal they received — surface what is missing:

What's Missing

  • P1 — No validated premise. Building now bets everything on an untested assumption.
  • P2 — No hungry user named. Who needs this today — not someday?
  • P3 — No core identified. What's the smallest thing that proves the idea?

Close

Run /sm:invalidate-prep first? Yes / Show me anyway / Skip

  • Yes — start the invalidation flow. Surface assumptions, find personas, prepare interview scripts.
  • Show me anyway — proceed to staging with the YAGNI flag visible.
  • Skip — builder has context you do not have. Respect it.

Read the full file on GitHub · 100 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. 12d ago First seen · 100 lines · 122 tokens per session scan B 2ddc7993552a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

sm:yagni is a skill published in the GitHub repository mnfst-ai/Stage_Manager_Skills (5 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 122 tokens to every session and 879 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (strips warnings and disclaimers). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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