file-edit-in-place

file-edit-in-place is a skill for Codex from PracticalSwan/agent-skills. It costs 43 tokens per session (1,487 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A file-editing guide for changing a named local file when the user explicitly asks to clean, rewrite, humanize, or remove AI-writing patterns.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for targeted edits to a specified file, including post-edit checks and preservation checks. A detector result alone is not treated as permission to modify the file.
Why use it?
It limits edits to the requested file and scope, preserves the original content and constraints, and requires verification after writing.

Skill for Codex

Written for Codex: agents/openai.yaml present. Also seen: mentions Claude Code; mentions Codex.

Good fit Use it for targeted edits to a specified file, including post-edit checks and preservation checks. A detector result alone is not treated as permission to modify the file.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/file-edit-in-place
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 PracticalSwan/agent-skills --skill file-edit-in-place
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/PracticalSwan/agent-skills

Made for: 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 file-edit-in-place

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/file-edit-in-place/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/file-edit-in-place)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/file-edit-in-place"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/file-edit-in-place/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 file-edit-in-place

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/file-edit-in-place"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/practicalswan/agent-skills/file-edit-in-place.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 43 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,487 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 $0.00043 $0.01487
Opus 5 $0.00022 $0.00744
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00297
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00149

Measured 4d ago against content hash 98cb53e2fa88, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

file-edit-in-place 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.

file-edit-in-place/SKILL.md · 153 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 153 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

File Edit In Place

Edit a named file according to the original ../avoid-ai-writing/SKILL.md edit mode.

For cross-Skill work, follow ../avoid-ai-writing-router/references/handoff-contract.md and ../avoid-ai-writing-router/references/skill-graph.json.

Connection contract

Incoming

Accept mutation work from:

  • avoid-ai-writing-router via ROUTE when a named file and explicit mutation request are present.
  • ai-writing-detector via FEED only when the user requested a named-file fix after an audit.
  • preservation-verifier via bounded REPAIR when the named file failed a preservation check.

A detector result never authorizes a write by itself. User mutation intent must already be explicit.

Required handoff state

Before mutation, preserve:

  • source file reference,
  • relevant original content or before snapshot,
  • requested scope,
  • context mode and voice constraints,
  • protected semantic constraints,
  • detector evidence when already available,
  • representation-sensitive guard state when applicable.

Set execution_evidence.mutation: executed only after a real host write/patch succeeds.

Outgoing

  • VERIFY to preservation-verifier after a successful edit when before/after material is available.
  • Return to the router if the user changes from named-file mutation to returned-text rewriting.
  • Return to the router for consequential authorship interpretation rather than answering it locally.

Senior-developer implementation lens

Apply the agency-senior-developer lens encoded in ../avoid-ai-writing-router/references/agency-role-lenses.md:

  • read before writing,
  • use the narrowest available edit or patch mechanism,
  • retain a before snapshot for verification,
  • propagate write failures instead of reporting success,
  • re-read the changed region,
  • keep mutation and verification evidence distinct.

Do not claim a file was edited because a patch was merely proposed.

Conditional representation guard

If the named file contains an image/video prompt, storyboard, shot description, or creative brief that describes people, preserve identity-sensitive details using the agency-inclusive-visuals-specialist lens.

Read the full file on GitHub · 153 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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 Changed 98cb53e2fa88
  2. 6d ago First seen · 153 lines · 43 tokens per session scan A 8a798dbf18fa

Subscribe to this mod's changes

file-edit-in-place is a skill published in the GitHub repository PracticalSwan/agent-skills (14 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 1,487 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 2026-09-06.