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 obra/superpowers-skills --skill testing-skills-with-subagentsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/obra/superpowers-skillsWrote 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/obra/superpowers-skills/testing-skills-with-subagents)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/obra/superpowers-skills/testing-skills-with-subagents"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/obra/superpowers-skills/testing-skills-with-subagents/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/obra/superpowers-skills/testing-skills-with-subagents"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/obra/superpowers-skills/testing-skills-with-subagents.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- Socket pass
- Snyk 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 | $0.00029 | $0.02903 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00015 | $0.01452 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00006 | $0.00581 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00003 | $0.00290 |
Grade A, and why
Testing Skills With Subagents 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 11d 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.
Copies of this mod
2 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:
- Testing Skills With Subagents — 100% identical, 0 lines differ
- testing-skills-with-subagents — 98% identical, 19 lines differ
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 391 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Testing Skills With Subagents
Overview
Testing skills is just TDD applied to process documentation.
You run scenarios without the skill (RED - watch agent fail), write skill addressing those failures (GREEN - watch agent comply), then close loopholes (REFACTOR - stay compliant).
Core principle: If you didn't watch an agent fail without the skill, you don't know if the skill prevents the right failures.
See skills/testing/test-driven-development for the fundamental cycle. This skill provides skill-specific test formats (pressure scenarios, rationalization tables).
Complete worked example: See examples/CLAUDE_MD_TESTING.md for a full test campaign testing CLAUDE.md documentation variants.
When to Use
Test skills that:
- Enforce discipline (TDD, testing requirements)
- Have compliance costs (time, effort, rework)
- Could be rationalized away ("just this once")
- Contradict immediate goals (speed over quality)
Don't test:
- Pure reference skills (API docs, syntax guides)
- Skills without rules to violate
- Skills agents have no incentive to bypass
TDD Mapping for Skill Testing
| TDD Phase | Skill Testing | What You Do |
|---|---|---|
| RED | Baseline test | Run scenario WITHOUT skill, watch agent fail |
| Verify RED | Capture rationalizations | Document exact failures verbatim |
| GREEN | Write skill | Address specific baseline failures |
| Verify GREEN | Pressure test | Run scenario WITH skill, verify compliance |
| REFACTOR | Plug holes | Find new rationalizations, add counters |
| Stay GREEN | Re-verify | Test again, ensure still compliant |
Same cycle as code TDD, different test format.
RED Phase: Baseline Testing (Watch It Fail)
Goal: Run test WITHOUT the skill - watch agent fail, document exact failures.
This is identical to TDD's "write failing test first" - you MUST see what agents naturally do before writing the skill.
Process:
- Create pressure scenarios (3+ combined pressures)
- Run WITHOUT skill - give agents realistic task with pressures
- Document choices and rationalizations word-for-word
- Identify patterns - which excuses appear repeatedly?
- Note effective pressures - which scenarios trigger violations?
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.
- 11d ago First seen · 391 lines · 29 tokens per session scan A f0dc03f68c34
Testing Skills With Subagents is a skill published in the GitHub repository obra/superpowers-skills (748 stars, last pushed 11mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 29 tokens to every session and 2,903 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.
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