before-we-make-a-mess

before-we-make-a-mess is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from MrBlushu/blushu-design-skills. It costs 121 tokens per session (1,639 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A product-discovery guide for uncertain decisions about features, opportunities, or user-interface directions. It separates known facts from guesses and unknowns before design or further investment.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to frame a product decision, choose focused research or experiments, test assumptions, decide whether to proceed, and define a limited handoff.
Why use it?
It helps prevent teams from committing to a solution before they understand the problem, users, alternatives, evidence, and risks.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for Claude Code and Codex: shipped in a Claude Code plugin, but also agents/openai.yaml present. Also seen: mentions Claude Code; mentions Codex.

Part of the blushu-design-skills plugin — 7 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to frame a product decision, choose focused research or experiments, test assumptions, decide whether to proceed, and define a limited handoff.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/mrblushu/blushu-design-skills/before-we-make-a-mess
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 MrBlushu/blushu-design-skills --skill before-we-make-a-mess
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/MrBlushu/blushu-design-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install blushu-design-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 7 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 before-we-make-a-mess

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mrblushu/blushu-design-skills/before-we-make-a-mess/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mrblushu/blushu-design-skills/before-we-make-a-mess)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mrblushu/blushu-design-skills/before-we-make-a-mess"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mrblushu/blushu-design-skills/before-we-make-a-mess/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 before-we-make-a-mess

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mrblushu/blushu-design-skills/before-we-make-a-mess"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mrblushu/blushu-design-skills/before-we-make-a-mess.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 121 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,639 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 $0.00121 $0.01639
Opus 5 $0.00060 $0.00820
Sonnet 5 $0.00024 $0.00328
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00164

Measured 11d ago against content hash a641482e775a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

before-we-make-a-mess 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 11d 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.

plugins/blushu-design-skills/skills/before-we-make-a-mess/SKILL.md · 88 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 88 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Before We Make a Mess

Operating contract

Make an uncertain product decision explicit and evidence-aware before consolidating a UX/UI solution. Produce a decision, a focused learning action, or a bounded handoff—not a delivery roadmap or an encyclopedic checklist.

Never invent users, evidence, metrics, research findings, provenance, or confidence. Keep facts/evidence, inferences, assumptions, and unknowns visibly distinct.

If the request is solely about interaction patterns, interface usability, visible text, project delivery, or technical implementation, route it to the relevant specialist and stop. When discovery and design are mixed, resolve the blocking product decision first and hand off only the remaining responsibility.

Workflow

  1. Define the decision. Rewrite the request as a concrete commitment to accept, defer, reframe, or reject. Name whether it concerns an opportunity, candidate solution, learning activity, or readiness gate.
  2. Frame the opportunity. State target, situation, problem, current alternative, desired outcome, success signal, urgency, and material constraints. Separate the outcome from the proposed solution. Mark missing information rather than filling it plausibly.
  3. Build the claim ledger. Classify each decisive claim as evidence, inference, assumption, or unknown. Preserve provenance, limitations, and contradictions. Treat stakeholder opinions and model output as claims, not evidence.
  4. Prioritize risks. Translate assumptions into consequences if false. Consider problem/value, use/comprehension, feasibility, business/context, and harm only when they can change the decision. Keep at most five active risks by default.
  5. Choose the next learning action. Target the highest-priority risk with the smallest credible research activity, experiment, prototype, spike, or bounded live test. Predeclare observable signals and the decision each result would change.
  6. Take a position. Select proceed, continue discovery, reframe/pause, or stop. Explain the evidence used, residual risk, reversibility, and what the state authorizes now. Do not present proceed as proof or stop as permanent truth.
  7. Define the handoff. Pass only the problem frame, decisive claims, accepted risks, constraints, prioritized principles, open questions, and review triggers. Do not perform the recipient skill’s work.

Read the full file on GitHub · 88 lines

Files

What ships with it

5 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. 11d ago First seen · 88 lines · 121 tokens per session scan A a641482e775a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

before-we-make-a-mess is a skill published in the GitHub repository MrBlushu/blushu-design-skills (4 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 121 tokens to every session and 1,639 once invoked, about $0.0006 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.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

anti-ui-slop

Stop coding agents from shipping generic UI. Extend the product's design system, use UIZZE evidence only when useful, cover required states, and inspect the rendered result.

sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills · 39 tokens

image-director

The Creative Design Manager — manages ALL visual design production under 1ai-content. Delegates to logo design, icon design, banner design, UI/UX, and brand design system. Has memory via 1ai-hub brain, follows 1ai-rules, and provides visual assets to Content Director, Marketing Director, and Sales Director. Use when…

oyi77/1ai-skills · 108 tokens

tsq-ui

A method for planning screens and user journeys before building them. It uses simple wireframes—rough screen layouts—and flow diagrams showing how users move through an interface.

sonature-lab/timsquad · 60 tokens

carrier-product-review

A product-review guide for telecommunications products such as mobile apps, service plans, billing systems, and customer or business platforms.

zhouguoqing/QianYuan.AIAgenticFramework · 50 tokens

frontend-design

Design and implement context-fit frontend interfaces with deliberate art direction, accessible interaction, responsive behavior, complete states, and rendered verification. Use when creating or substantially reworking pages, components, product workspaces, dashboards, marketing sites, editorial surfaces, commerce…

PracticalSwan/agent-skills · 59 tokens

design-system

Document and define UI design system tokens, components, and guidelines.

furkangonel/cowrangler · 16 tokens