vc:autoresearch

vc:autoresearch is a skill for Claude Code from opencue/cuecards. It costs 34 tokens per session (1,515 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

An automated loop for improving a measurable software result through repeated experiments. Examples include test coverage, performance, bundle size, and the number of lint errors.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for optimisation tasks with a defined scope, a mechanical metric, and fast checks that can compare each experiment.
Why use it?
It provides a repeatable way to test changes against a fixed score and keep improvements that do not make the result worse.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: argument-hint in frontmatter. Also seen: names the AskUserQuestion tool; positional $N argument; installed under .agents/ (shared by several agents).

Good fit Use it for optimisation tasks with a defined scope, a mechanical metric, and fast checks that can compare each experiment.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/opencue/cuecards/vc-autoresearch
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.

Any agent
npx skills add opencue/cuecards --skill vc-autoresearch
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/opencue/cuecards

Made for: Claude Code.

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 vc:autoresearch

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/opencue/cuecards/vc-autoresearch.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/opencue/cuecards/vc-autoresearch)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/opencue/cuecards/vc-autoresearch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/opencue/cuecards/vc-autoresearch.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 34 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,515 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00034 $0.01515
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00758
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00303
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00152

Measured 4d ago against content hash 71a071e5faf0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

vc:autoresearch 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 4d 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.

.agents/skills/vc-autoresearch/SKILL.md · 154 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 154 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

vc:autoresearch — Autonomous Optimization Loop

Constraint + Mechanical Metric + Fast Verification = Autonomous Improvement

When to Use

  • Improve a measurable metric (test coverage, bundle size, ESLint errors, Lighthouse score, etc.)
  • Autonomous execution over N iterations without manual intervention
  • Git-tracked experiments where you want rollback on regression
  • Exploring a search space of code changes with consistent evaluation

When NOT to Use

Situation Better Tool
Subjective goals ("make it cleaner") execute-agent with an approved plan
Bug fixing with known root cause debugger + execute-agent
One-shot tasks, no repetition needed execute-agent
No mechanical metric to measure progress normal RIPER flow instead of autoresearch
Files outside a defined scope manual approach

Configuration Format

Parsed from user message. Missing required fields trigger a batched AskUserQuestion.

Required

Field Description Example
Goal Human description of what to improve "Increase test coverage in src/utils"
Scope Glob pattern(s) for editable files "src/utils/**/*.ts"
Verify Shell command that outputs a single number "npx jest --coverage --json | jq '.coverageMap | .. | .s? | to_entries | map(.value) | (map(select(.>0)) | length) / length * 100' | tail -1"

Optional

Field Default Description
Guard none Regression check command (exit 0 = pass)
Iterations 10 Maximum iterations to run
Noise medium Tolerance for metric variance: low / medium / high
Min-Delta 0 Minimum improvement to count as progress
Direction higher Whether higher or lower metric value is better

Interactive Setup

When required fields are missing, ask all at once:

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [
    { question: "What metric do you want to improve? (e.g. 'test coverage in src/utils')", field: "Goal" },
    { question: "Which files may be edited? (glob, e.g. 'src/utils/**/*.ts')", field: "Scope" },
    { question: "Verify command — must print a single number to stdout", field: "Verify" },
    { question: "Guard command for regression check? (optional, press Enter to skip)", field: "Guard" }
  ]
})

Read the full file on GitHub · 154 lines

Files

What ships with it

5 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. 4d ago First seen · 154 lines · 34 tokens per session scan A 71a071e5faf0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

vc:autoresearch is a skill published in the GitHub repository opencue/cuecards (5 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 34 tokens to every session and 1,515 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-09-03.