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.
npx skills add NikiforovAll/scratchpad --skill planning-with-scratchpadgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/NikiforovAll/scratchpadWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/nikiforovall/scratchpad/planning-with-scratchpad)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/nikiforovall/scratchpad/planning-with-scratchpad"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nikiforovall/scratchpad/planning-with-scratchpad/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/nikiforovall/scratchpad/planning-with-scratchpad"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nikiforovall/scratchpad/planning-with-scratchpad.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector pass
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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00054 | $0.02721 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00022 | $0.01088 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00011 | $0.00544 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00272 |
Grade A, and why
planning-with-scratchpad 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 1mo 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 281 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Planning with Scratchpad
Use persistent markdown files as external memory for complex tasks. Files survive context limits and session boundaries. The files live in a scratchpad (a _plans/ folder + manifest) so the human can browse the plan in the visual viewer.
Load the scratch skill first — it owns all CLI mechanics (new, add, ls, show, ui). This skill adds the planning conventions on top.
Bundled References
Read these when you need deeper guidance on a specific aspect:
- examples.md — Real task examples showing different file combinations. Read when unsure which files to create for a given task shape.
When to Use
- User explicitly requests planning/tracking with a scratchpad
- 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 Mode instead)
- Quick fixes or small changes
- Tasks with clear requirements needing no research
Directory Convention
One pad per task, created in _plans/ with a date-prefixed folder:
scratch new "<task-name>" --dir _plans --id "$SESSION_ID"
This creates _plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>/. Write files into that folder with your normal tools, then register each with scratch add so it appears in the viewer:
_plans/
2026-01-08-dark-mode-toggle/
scratchpad.json # manifest (managed by scratch)
plan.md
research-css-strategies.md
decisions.md
2026-01-09-api-auth-refactor/
scratchpad.json
plan.md
research-auth-providers.md
research-token-storage.md
decision-oauth-vs-saml.md
decision-session-strategy.md
references.md
scratch-migration-steps.md
Naming: YYYY-MM-DD-task-name (kebab-case, concise description) — scratch new derives this from the task name + date.
File Types — One Concern Per File
Each file owns a single concern. When in doubt, create a new file. A pad with 8 focused files is better than one with 3 bloated ones. Split early — you can always cross-reference with relative links. Register each file with scratch add --type.
What ships with it
1 file 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.
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 281 lines · 54 tokens per session scan A c7c5df74eb8f
planning-with-scratchpad is a skill published in the GitHub repository NikiforovAll/scratchpad (16 stars, last pushed 11d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 54 tokens to every session and 2,721 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.
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