mainframe-planning

A planning guide for replacing mainframe-specific COBOL features with standard COBOL equivalents. Mainframe systems are large legacy computers that often provide special file, transaction, and terminal services.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan replacements for CICS, IMS, and VSAM data operations, map response codes to file-status values, and specify how terminal operations should be mocked or stubbed.
Why use it?
It gives the migration team a written mapping before code changes begin, including differences in errors, cleanup, and edge cases.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/openhands/extensions/mainframe-planning
Any agent
npx skills add OpenHands/extensions --skill mainframe-planning
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/OpenHands/extensions

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 35 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 731 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00035 $0.00731
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00365
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00146
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00073

Measured 2d ago against content hash a6e64ed01595, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mainframe-planning 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 2d 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.

plugins/cobol-modernization/skills/mainframe-planning/SKILL.md · 79 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 79 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Create a comprehensive transformation guide that maps each mainframe dependency to its standard COBOL replacement.

This guide is a prerequisite for the actual transformation — DO NOT modify any code, only create the guide.

Output Format

Document each mainframe-specific construct with:

  1. Pattern: The mainframe construct (e.g., EXEC CICS READ FILE(...))
  2. Replacement: The standard COBOL equivalent
  3. Error Handling: How to replicate the mainframe's error behavior
    • Map CICS RESP/RESP2 codes to FILE STATUS equivalents
    • Specify which FILE STATUS values to check (e.g., 00=success, 23=not found, 35=file not exists)
  4. Resource Cleanup: Any cleanup the replacement requires (CICS auto-manages resources; file I/O does not)
  5. Edge Cases: Behavior differences between mainframe and standard COBOL

Constructs to Address

Data Operations (CICS/IMS/VSAM)

  • READ, WRITE, REWRITE, DELETE operations
  • STARTBR, READNEXT, READPREV (browse operations)
  • CICS error handling: HANDLE CONDITION, RESP/RESP2 options
  • VSAM → sequential or indexed file I/O

UI/Terminal Operations (BMS maps, screens)

  • SEND MAP, RECEIVE MAP → these can be MOCKED or stubbed
  • Screen I/O is not needed for business logic validation
  • Document how to replace with simple ACCEPT/DISPLAY or test harness stubs
  • Focus on preserving the data flow, not the UI interaction

Other Mainframe Constructs

  • Mainframe data types (COMP-3 packed decimal, etc.)
  • JCL-embedded constructs
  • IMS calls (if present)

Critical Requirements

  • Every CICS command that can fail MUST have an error handling replacement documented
  • UI operations should be clearly marked as "mock/stub" so the agent doesn't get stuck on them
  • Prefer: file-based I/O over mainframe I/O, standard data types over mainframe types

Common Mappings Reference

FILE STATUS Codes

Code Meaning CICS Equivalent
00 Success Normal completion
23 Record not found NOTFND condition
35 File does not exist NOTOPEN condition
22 Duplicate key DUPREC condition
3x I/O errors Various IOERR conditions

Read the full file on GitHub · 79 lines

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. 2d ago First seen · 79 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A a6e64ed01595

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mainframe-planning is a skill published in the GitHub repository OpenHands/extensions (137 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 731 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 2026-08-30.

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