model-forward

model-forward is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from naimkatiman/continuous-improvement. It costs 62 tokens per session (650 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A set of working rules for guiding an AI coding agent toward the user's main goal while keeping research, verification and reflection in place. It treats detailed skills as temporary support that can be reduced as models improve.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it as a general approach for planning agent work, deciding when a separate skill is still needed, and balancing autonomy with checks.
Why use it?
It helps prevent scope drift and keeps guardrails focused on the parts of disciplined coding that remain useful across model updates.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the continuous-improvement plugin — 21 skills, 6 hooks 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/naimkatiman/continuous-improvement/model-forward
Any agent
npx skills add naimkatiman/continuous-improvement --skill model-forward
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/naimkatiman/continuous-improvement

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install continuous-improvement, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 21 skills, 6 hooks.

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 model-forward

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/naimkatiman/continuous-improvement/model-forward.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/naimkatiman/continuous-improvement/model-forward)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/naimkatiman/continuous-improvement/model-forward"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/naimkatiman/continuous-improvement/model-forward.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 62 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 650 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 $0.00062 $0.00650
Opus 5 $0.00031 $0.00325
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00130
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00065

Measured 3d ago against content hash 2e60d2bdf2cf, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

model-forward 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.

plugins/continuous-improvement/skills/model-forward/SKILL.md · 45 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 45 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Model-Forward Skill

The standing mental model for every session: always go with Claude — not against it — until the user says otherwise.

Models improve continuously. Mechanics that skills hand-hold today (planning etiquette, routing, verification reminders) keep merging into the model itself. Betting against that trend produces scaffolding that fights the harness. Betting with it keeps only what stays valuable as models get smarter.

The Two Invariants

Everything in continuous-improvement reduces to two things that survive every model generation:

  1. Goal-driven execution. Anchor on the highest stated goal — the higher the goal, the better the execution. Tie every change to it, refuse scope creep, stop when it is met. (Laws 2, 3, 4, 6.)
  2. Self-discipline / guardrails. Research before executing, verify before reporting, reflect and learn after. Guardrails are how an agent earns autonomy. (Laws 1, 4, 5, 7.)

Skill mechanics are scaffolding around those two. The invariants are the product; the scaffolding is replaceable.

Decision Rules

Situation Model-forward call
A native Claude Code feature now covers what a custom skill or hook does Prefer the native path; propose retiring the scaffold instead of maintaining a parallel one
A skill's instructions conflict with current Claude Code best practice Follow Claude Code best practice; flag the skill for update
Tempted to add scaffolding to compensate for a model weakness First confirm the current model still has that weakness; do not patch yesterday's model
A guardrail keeps firing on behavior the model no longer exhibits Propose loosening or retiring it — stacking stale guardrails is also drift
The user explicitly says to go against a default The user wins. "Until said otherwise" is the contract.

Never retire a guardrail unilaterally — retiring scaffolding is a proposal to the operator, not a silent action. The bias points toward the model; the authority stays with the user.

Read the full file on GitHub · 45 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. 3d ago First seen · 45 lines · 62 tokens per session scan A 2e60d2bdf2cf

Subscribe to this mod's changes

model-forward is a skill published in the GitHub repository naimkatiman/continuous-improvement (7 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 62 tokens to every session and 650 once invoked, about $0.0003 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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