planning-with-files

planning-with-files is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from NikiforovAll/github-copilot-rules. It costs 23 tokens per session (1,029 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A file-based planning method for complex or multi-session work. It stores the plan, research notes, decisions, and progress in dated Markdown folders so they remain available between sessions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to track research-heavy projects, break work into phases, record findings, preserve decisions, and continue a task across sessions.
Why use it?
It gives the work a persistent record instead of relying only on the current conversation. This makes long tasks easier to resume and keeps important decisions visible.

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/nikiforovall/github-copilot-rules/planning-with-files
Any agent
npx skills add NikiforovAll/github-copilot-rules --skill planning-with-files
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/NikiforovAll/github-copilot-rules

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 planning-with-files

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nikiforovall/github-copilot-rules/planning-with-files.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/nikiforovall/github-copilot-rules/planning-with-files)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/nikiforovall/github-copilot-rules/planning-with-files"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nikiforovall/github-copilot-rules/planning-with-files.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 23 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,029 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 $0.00023 $0.01029
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00515
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00206
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00103

Measured 5d ago against content hash b0fa571fd361, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

planning-with-files 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 5d 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.

.github/skills/planning-with-files/SKILL.md · 165 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 165 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Planning with Files

Use persistent markdown files as external memory for complex tasks. Files survive context limits and session boundaries.

Use TodoWrite to decompose phases into executable tasks. Before closing session, use Question to confirm findings, decisions, and deliverables are satisfactory.

When to Use

  • User explicitly requests planning/tracking with files
  • Complex multi-session tasks
  • Research-heavy work requiring persistent notes
  • Tasks where decisions and rationale need to be preserved

When NOT to Use

  • Simple single-session tasks (use Plan agent instead)
  • Quick fixes or small changes
  • Tasks with clear requirements needing no research

Directory Convention

All planning files go in _plans/ with date-prefixed task folders:

_plans/
  2026-01-08-dark-mode-toggle/
    plan.md
    research.md
    decisions.md
  2026-01-09-api-auth-refactor/
    plan.md
    scratch.md

Naming: YYYY-MM-DD-task-name (kebab-case, concise description)

File Types

Create files based on what the task needs, not a fixed pattern:

Type When to Create Content
plan.md Always Goal, phases, status, errors encountered
research.md Research-heavy tasks Sources, findings, synthesized data
decisions.md Tradeoff decisions ADRs, options considered, rationale
scratch.md Complex reasoning Drafts, working notes, exploratory code
[deliverable].md Final outputs Reports, summaries, documentation

plan.md Template

# Plan: [Brief Description]

## Goal
[One sentence describing the end state]

## Phases
- [ ] Phase 1: [Description]
- [ ] Phase 2: [Description]
- [ ] Phase 3: [Description]

## Status
**Current:** [What's happening now]

## Decisions
- [Decision]: [Rationale]

## Errors Encountered
- [Error]: [Resolution]

research.md Template

# Research: [Topic]

## Sources
- [Source]: [Key findings]

## Findings
### [Category]
- [Finding]

Read the full file on GitHub · 165 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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. 5d ago First seen · 165 lines · 23 tokens per session scan A b0fa571fd361

Subscribe to this mod's changes

planning-with-files is a skill published in the GitHub repository NikiforovAll/github-copilot-rules (131 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 23 tokens to every session and 1,029 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-08-30.