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 oborchers/fractional-cto --skill progressive-disclosuregit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/oborchers/fractional-ctoWrote 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/oborchers/fractional-cto/progressive-disclosure)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/oborchers/fractional-cto/progressive-disclosure"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/oborchers/fractional-cto/progressive-disclosure/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/oborchers/fractional-cto/progressive-disclosure"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/oborchers/fractional-cto/progressive-disclosure.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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 | $0.00060 | $0.00686 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00024 | $0.00274 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00012 | $0.00137 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00069 |
Grade A, and why
progressive-disclosure 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 69 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Reveal Complexity Progressively
Nielsen defined progressive disclosure in 2006: defer advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications easier to learn and less error-prone. This improves learnability, efficiency of use, and error rate.
The Two-Level Limit
Never go beyond two levels of disclosure. Usability drops rapidly at three or more levels because users get lost navigating between them. If a settings panel requires three levels of nesting, the design needs simplification, not more progressive disclosure.
Linear's philosophy: "Simple first, then powerful." Intercom's principle: "Simple and opinionated by default, progressively reveal power and flexibility."
Onboarding
Onboarding is progressive disclosure applied to time. The data is stark: 40–60% of signup users never return after their first experience. Every extra minute in time-to-value lowers conversion by approximately 3%.
Signup
- Limit to 3 fields maximum — every extra field costs roughly 7% conversion
- Frame additional questions as personalization, not interrogation
- Example: Notion asks "What will you use this for?" to customize the experience
Product Tours
- 3–5 steps maximum
- Always include a skip button
- Focus on one critical action rather than explaining every feature
- Users are 4.5x more likely to complete a second tour if they complete the first one — make the first tour excellent and brief
Checklists
Checklists work because of the Zeigarnik effect — the psychological need to complete unfinished tasks.
Rules:
- Start the progress bar at 20%, not 0%
- Keep checklists to 3–5 items
- Nest them directly in the product, not floating on top
- Tie items to real user actions that demonstrate value, not arbitrary feature exploration
Empty States
Empty states are the most underrated onboarding surface. Notion fills its empty first-use state with educational content that doubles as a checklist.
Every empty state needs three things:
- Context explaining why it is empty
- A single clear call-to-action
- Reassurance that nothing is broken
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.
- 5d ago First seen · 69 lines · 60 tokens per session scan A 4ca3223edc8d
progressive-disclosure is a skill published in the GitHub repository oborchers/fractional-cto (32 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 60 tokens to every session and 686 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 2026-10-13.
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