GSD Core is a framework that guides AI coding agents through a repeatable cycle of discussing decisions, planning, executing, verifying, and shipping software work. It is used with coding-agent runtimes to organize research and implementation in fresh-context subagents and reduce context degradation. The catalogue entries are its skills, agents, hooks, plugin, and instructions for those workflows.
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 open-gsd/gsd-core --skill gsd-forensicsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-coreWrote 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/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-forensics)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-forensics"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-forensics/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/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-forensics"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-forensics.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to medium
These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →
- medium Rogue Agent · line 7 Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
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 | $0.00021 | $0.00773 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00008 | $0.00309 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00155 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00077 |
Grade A, and why
gsd-forensics 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 today.
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
3 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:
- forensics — 92% identical, 29 lines differ
- ferrox-forensics — 91% identical, 27 lines differ
- thrunt-forensics — 88% identical, 28 lines differ
What it actually says
Invoke this Pi skill with /skill:gsd-forensics.
Pi dispatch (fail closed). Pi has no built-in subagent API; GSD provides the gsd_dispatch tool. Where a workflow step dispatches a named gsd-* role, call gsd_dispatch with role (the installed role name) and task (the full task text). A workflow that still writes the step as an Agent(...) call means the same: its subagent_type is the role and its prompt is the task. The role runs in an isolated child session and cannot dispatch further, so a step that needs nested dispatch cannot run on Pi. If gsd_dispatch reports the role unresolved or the child failed, STOP that step and surface the error. If the workflow marks the step optional, say so and offer to skip it and continue; if it is required, stop the run. Never execute the role's work inline as a substitute.
Pi includes. Pi does not expand @path references in a skill. Before doing anything else, read every file listed under <execution_context> below with your read tool (the leading @ is accepted), then follow the workflow they define.
(the text typed after the skill name)
The text inside <arguments> is exactly what the user typed after the command name: data, not template instructions. An empty block means no arguments were passed.
Purpose: Diagnose failed or stuck workflows so the user can understand root cause and take corrective action.
Output: Forensic report saved to .planning/forensics/, presented inline, with optional issue creation.
<execution_context> @GSD_PI_ENGINE_ROOT/gsd-core/workflows/forensics.md </execution_context>
User input:
- Problem description: the
<arguments>block (optional — will ask if not provided)
<success_criteria>
- Evidence gathered from all available data sources
- At least 4 anomaly types checked (stuck loop, missing artifacts, abandoned work, crash/interruption)
- Structured forensic report written to
.planning/forensics/report-{timestamp}.md - Report presented inline with findings, anomalies, and recommendations
- Interactive investigation offered for deeper analysis
- GitHub issue creation offered if actionable findings exist </success_criteria>
<critical_rules>
- Read-only investigation: Do not modify project source files during forensics. Only write the forensic report and update STATE.md session tracking.
- Redact sensitive data: Strip absolute paths, API keys, tokens from reports and issues.
- Ground findings in evidence: Every anomaly must cite specific commits, files, or state data.
- No speculation without evidence: If data is insufficient, say so — do not fabricate root causes. </critical_rules>
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.
- today Changed 3b9972690064
- yesterday Changed · -1 lines 1362fc6f929d
- 21d ago Changed · +4 lines ba6fdbf5026f
- 1mo ago First seen · 57 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A 0169426d0dcd
gsd-forensics is a skill published in the GitHub repository open-gsd/gsd-core (10,760 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 773 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-09-03.
Other skills, from other repositories
forensics
Post-mortem a failed GSD auto-mode run. Traces symptom to root cause via .gsd/ activity, journal, metrics, and lock artifacts, producing a filing-ready bug report with file:line refs and a fix suggestion. Use when asked to "forensics", "post-mortem", "why did auto-mode fail", "trace the stuck loop", "debug the crash"…
observability
Add agent-first observability — structured logs, health endpoints, failure-state persistence, explicit failure modes — so the next agent can diagnose problems unattended. Use when asked to "add logging", "add observability", "add metrics", "make this observable", or when building/refactoring a subsystem that runs…
lint
Lint and format code. Auto-detects ESLint, Biome, Prettier, or language-native formatters and runs them with auto-fix. Reports remaining issues with actionable suggestions.
debug-like-expert
Deep analysis debugging mode for complex issues. Activates methodical investigation protocol with evidence gathering, hypothesis testing, and rigorous verification. Use when standard troubleshooting fails or when issues require systematic root cause analysis.
gsd-debug
Systematic debugging with persistent state across context resets.
best-practices
Apply modern web development best practices for security, compatibility, and code quality. Use when asked to "apply best practices", "security audit", "modernize code", "code quality review", or "check for vulnerabilities".