engine-bootstrap

A setup tool for creating a new source-context skill from website addresses or local file paths. It detects required details and creates the initial project files.

In plain words
What is it for?
Starting a new source-context project from a list of URLs or local paths, then handing off to the next research workflow.
Why use it?
It removes the need to manually create the folders and starter files before researching a new set of sources.

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/nick-railsback/skill-engine/engine-bootstrap
Any agent
npx skills add nick-railsback/skill-engine --skill engine-bootstrap
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nick-railsback/skill-engine

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 29 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,909 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. 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 $0.00029 $0.01909
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.00955
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00382
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00191

Measured 2d ago against content hash a8291a3cd274, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

engine-bootstrap 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 2d 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.

Enumerates other installed skillsmediumAgent snooping

Other skills' SKILL.md files reveal prompts, capabilities and secrets that should be invisible to peers.

find .claude/skills -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -name '*-context' 2>/dev/null
plugin/skill-engine/skills/engine-bootstrap/SKILL.md · 178 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 178 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Engine bootstrap

Scaffold a new contextualizer in the current directory. Take a list of source URLs or local paths from the user, auto-detect the metadata the engine needs, stamp the matching template set into place, and exit with a 3-line message naming the next workflow to run.

The user supplies sources. The engine fills in everything else.

Installation layout

A contextualizer is stamped as a self-contained Claude Code project skill at:

.claude/skills/<slug>-context/
├── SKILL.md
├── verify.sh
├── research/
│   ├── source-paths.json
│   └── .research-state.json
└── references/   (created by /skill-engine:discover later)

.claude/skills/<slug>-context/ is the contextualizer root. Every engine workflow (discover, refresh, status, self-audit, new-reference, using-skill-engine) resolves research/..., references/..., and verify.sh relative to this root. The user invokes slash commands from the project working directory (the parent of .claude/); the workflows locate the root themselves.

Activation guard

This skill assumes no contextualizer is installed under .claude/skills/*-context/ yet.

  1. From the project working directory, look for an existing contextualizer:

    find .claude/skills -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -name '*-context' 2>/dev/null
    

    If any match is a non-empty directory, surface a one-line warning naming the path, list the files that would be overwritten, and pause for explicit confirmation before continuing. The condition is files-present, NOT a parseable research/.research-state.json: a corrupted state marker must not bypass this guard, because the directory may still hold a curated SKILL.md and a populated research/source-paths.json that stamping would overwrite. The using-skill-engine router sends both new and corrupt-marker directories here; either way, existing files pause for confirmation.

  2. Otherwise, proceed.

Step 1 — Intake

Accept one or more sources: positional arguments (straight to Step 2) or, with none supplied, an interactive loop reading pasted URLs/paths until the literal word finish. Intake asks exactly one content question and zero engine-taxonomy questions — never kind, source_id, scope, or topology directly. Recognition table, disambiguator, and edge case are in references/intake-and-detection.md.

Read the full file on GitHub · 178 lines

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. 2d ago First seen · 178 lines · 29 tokens per session scan B a8291a3cd274

Subscribe to this mod's changes

engine-bootstrap is a skill published in the GitHub repository nick-railsback/skill-engine (2 stars, last pushed 25d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 29 tokens to every session and 1,909 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (enumerates other installed skills). 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

skill-creator

Create or improve Zhin Agent skills (SKILL.md). Use when asked to add a skill, write SKILL.md, document a repeatable agent workflow, or refine skill frontmatter/keywords. Triggers: 创建技能, 写 SKILL, skill-creator, 加 skill.

zhinjs/zhin · 61 tokens

skill-sync-checker

Detects content drift between skill files and their source documents. Helps maintain skills that are derived from other documentation by comparing content and flagging outdated sections.

kanyun-inc/reskill · 35 tokens

erpaval

Workflow for autonomous software development with the Kiro CLI (open Agent Skills standard). Classifiers route scope, complexity, directory state, and spec readiness before committing to Explore / Research / Plan / Act / Validate, then close the loop with a Compound step that persists lessons to .erpaval/solutions/…

theagenticguy/erpaval · 174 tokens

skill-creator

Guide for creating effective agent skills. Use when you want to create a new skill, improve an existing skill, or learn best practices for skill development. Helps codify learned patterns into reusable, discoverable skills.

joelhooks/swarm-tools · 46 tokens

agent-ux-patterns

Agent UX patterns and human-in-the-loop design: Twilio A2H protocol, Levels of Autonomy (L0-L5), inbox pattern, progressive trust, decision journal, gate reviews, autonomous work reports. Six-phase methodology from vague pain point to concrete data model via landscape research and multi-direction brainstorming. Use…

theagenticguy/erpaval · 182 tokens

Agent Instruction Drift Check

Procedure for comparing an agent-facing instruction doc (AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md-style) against the actual current code and configuration to find and flag mismatches.

niels-emmer/myace · 38 tokens