design-an-interface

design-an-interface is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from OutlineDriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension. It costs 62 tokens per session (996 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of design-an-interface, Apache-2.0.

A design exercise for creating several substantially different module or API contracts before choosing one.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps compare module boundaries, operations, callers, and trade-offs while designing a new API.
Why use it?
It helps avoid settling too quickly on an interface that is difficult to understand or use correctly.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions subagents.

Good fit It helps compare module boundaries, operations, callers, and trade-offs while designing a new API.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/outlinedriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension/design-an-interface
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 OutlineDriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension --skill design-an-interface
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/OutlineDriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 design-an-interface

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/outlinedriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension/design-an-interface/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/outlinedriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension/design-an-interface)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/outlinedriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension/design-an-interface"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/outlinedriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension/design-an-interface/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for design-an-interface

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/outlinedriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension/design-an-interface"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/outlinedriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension/design-an-interface.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 62 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 996 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 100% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00062 $0.00996
Opus 5 $0.00031 $0.00498
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00199
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00100

Measured 8d ago against content hash ba626f659fd1, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

design-an-interface 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 8d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to design-an-interface — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/design-an-interface/SKILL.md · 83 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 83 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Apply "Design It Twice" (Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design): the first interface is rarely the best. Generate at least three radically different shapes for the same module, then compare on depth and ease of correct use. Implementation is out of scope — this skill stops at the contract.

Run discovery before generation. When the module already has callers, dispatch an Explore agent to enumerate them (fd for files, git grep/ast-grep for usage sites) so the constraint set reflects real consumers, not imagined ones.

Modality vs adjacent skills: This is divergent generation under enforced contrast. Implementation planning is convergent and execution-oriented. Clarifying-question protocol is VS-shaped clarification on a single direction. Pick this skill when the answer is "we don't yet know the right shape" and the value is in deliberate contrast across N candidates.

Workflow

1. Frame the contract

Capture, in this order, before any design work:

  • The problem the module solves, in one sentence.
  • The callers — peer modules, external consumers, tests — and which one is primary.
  • The key operations, ranked by frequency.
  • Constraints: performance budget, compatibility surface, existing patterns the module must echo.
  • The information boundary: what the module hides versus what it must expose.

If any item is unknown, surface it as a question before proceeding. Designing on assumed callers wastes the parallel-generation budget.

2. Generate divergent designs in parallel

Dispatch 3–4 Explore agents simultaneously, each with a distinct constraint that forces divergence. Suggested constraint slate:

  • Agent A: minimise the surface — 1–3 entry points maximum.
  • Agent B: maximise generality — accept many shapes of input.
  • Agent C: optimise for the dominant call site at the cost of the rare one.
  • Agent D: borrow shape from a named external paradigm (iterator, builder, capability handle, effect handler).

Each agent returns: contract signature, one realistic call-site example, what the design hides internally, and the trade-offs it accepts.

Read the full file on GitHub · 83 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. 8d ago First seen · 83 lines · 62 tokens per session scan A ba626f659fd1

Subscribe to this mod's changes

design-an-interface is a skill published in the GitHub repository OutlineDriven/odin-gemini-cli-extension (5 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 62 tokens to every session and 996 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to design-an-interface, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

design

Set visual and interaction direction for any UI surface (web, React, TUI, CLI, desktop, Qt, design-system tokens) before any UI code. Direction-first: generates 3-4 distinct directions via verbalized sampling, picks one via per-axis single-select, then derives palette, typography, spacing, motion budget. Loads when…

OutlineDriven/odin-codex-plugin · 151 tokens

design-an-interface

Generate radically-different module or API contract designs in parallel, then compare on depth, simplicity, and ease-of-correct-use. Trigger when the user is shaping a new module surface, exploring contract options, comparing module shapes, or applying "design it twice" to a first-pass sketch.

OutlineDriven/odin-codex-plugin · 62 tokens

apidesign

Design stable, hard-to-misuse interfaces - REST/GraphQL endpoints, module boundaries, type contracts, component props, anything where one piece of code talks to another. Use at design time, before implementing the surface. Triggers: 'design this API', 'API contract', 'endpoint design', 'module boundary', 'interface…

vanducng/skills · 89 tokens

draft-design

Generate spec/DESIGN.md for the project. Asks at init whether to create a project-owned design system or reference an external one (URL/file/brand-book) as a guideline. Each project owns its DESIGN.md — no inheritance.

firatcand/forge · 51 tokens

askme

Verbalized Sampling (VS) protocol for intent exploration before planning, mode-aware. Default exhaustive runs full VS; collaborative runs tip-sharing dialogue; adversarial walks the design tree one fork at a time. Auto-detects from phrasing ("help me refine" → collaborative, "poke holes" → adversarial); override via…

OutlineDriven/odin-codex-plugin · 106 tokens

grill-ai-mastery

Hybrid interview that probes AI-engineering mastery by tip-vocabulary depth — entity referencing, loop closure, observability, harness improvement — not by token usage or LOC. Start collaborative (two-way tip exchange), escalate to adversarial probing when depth is lacking. Trigger when the user says "interview me on…

OutlineDriven/odin-codex-plugin · 104 tokens