read-the-docs-first

read-the-docs-first is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins. It costs 107 tokens per session (1,517 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of read-the-damn-docs, MIT.

A rule to consult official documentation before working with unfamiliar or changing software tools. It applies to APIs, libraries, frameworks, command-line tools, cloud services, and provider SDKs.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it before implementing, integrating, upgrading, debugging, or answering questions about third-party software or current product behavior.
Why use it?
It reduces errors caused by outdated assumptions about supported behavior, settings, limits, authentication, or interfaces.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the read-the-docs-first plugin — 1 skill shipped together

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/patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins/read-the-docs-first
Any agent
npx skills add patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins --skill read-the-docs-first
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install read-the-docs-first, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill.

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 read-the-docs-first

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins/read-the-docs-first.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins/read-the-docs-first)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins/read-the-docs-first"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins/read-the-docs-first.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 107 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,517 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 95% 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 $0.00107 $0.01517
Opus 5 $0.00053 $0.00758
Sonnet 5 $0.00021 $0.00303
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00152

Measured 4d ago against content hash c8eb2f15addd, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

read-the-docs-first 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.

Origin

This is a copy

95% identical to read-the-damn-docs — 13 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.

plugins/read-the-docs-first/skills/read-the-docs-first/SKILL.md · 120 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 120 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Read The Docs First

Do not guess where authoritative docs can answer the question. The most common right move is to web-search for the current official docs, open the relevant pages, and read them before coding. For APIs, versions, provider behavior, config, limits, lifecycle hooks, or security-sensitive flows, ground the answer in what the docs actually say.

Docs-First Triggers

Read docs before proceeding when any of these are true:

  • The user asks for "latest", "current", "official", "supported", "best practice", "recommended", "today", "now", or "look it up".
  • The needed docs are not already in the repo or supplied by the user. Search the web for the official docs rather than hoping model memory is current.
  • The task adds, upgrades, configures, or imports a package, SDK, framework, plugin, CLI, model, cloud resource, or provider integration.
  • The API is fast-moving or version-sensitive: AI SDKs, OpenAI/Anthropic/Google APIs, Next.js, React, Tailwind, Vite, Nitro, Drizzle, Prisma, Stripe, GitHub, Slack, Notion, browser APIs, deployment platforms, auth libraries, and similar.
  • The implementation depends on auth, OAuth scopes, permissions, secrets, webhooks, billing, payments, PII, encryption, data retention, migrations, retries, rate limits, quotas, caching, deploys, or compliance.
  • An error mentions deprecation, unknown options, missing exports, invalid config, unsupported fields, changed defaults, or version mismatch.
  • A repo has local docs, ADRs, generated schemas, OpenAPI specs, route/action registries, design-system docs, or package-level READMEs that could define the contract.
  • The choice is expensive to reverse: public wire formats, database schema, migration strategy, persistent IDs, event names, customer-visible behavior, or external automation contracts.
  • You catch yourself about to write "usually", "probably", "I think", "from memory", or code copied from model memory for an external API.

What Counts As Docs

Read the full file on GitHub · 120 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. 4d ago First seen · 120 lines · 107 tokens per session scan A c8eb2f15addd

Subscribe to this mod's changes

read-the-docs-first is a skill published in the GitHub repository patrickdappollonio/claude-plugins (8 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 107 tokens to every session and 1,517 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 95% identical to read-the-damn-docs, differing in 13 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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