mode

mode is a skill for Claude Code from Rockielab/rockie-claude. It costs 118 tokens per session (1,408 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A small TOML configuration file that changes how a coding-agent session operates without changing the researcher's lasting preferences. TOML is a simple text format for named settings.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to switch budgets, hardware preferences, reading focus, scope, subagent policies, writing style, or deadlines for a particular session.
Why use it?
It lets one session use different constraints or priorities while keeping the central identity and preferences unchanged.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: SessionStart hook event. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths; mentions subagents.

Part of the rockie-claude plugin — 29 skills, 1 MCP server shipped together

Good fit Use it to switch budgets, hardware preferences, reading focus, scope, subagent policies, writing style, or deadlines for a particular session.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/rockielab/rockie-claude/mode
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 Rockielab/rockie-claude --skill mode
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Rockielab/rockie-claude

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install rockie-claude, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 29 skills, 1 MCP server.

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 mode

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rockielab/rockie-claude/mode/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/rockielab/rockie-claude/mode)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/rockielab/rockie-claude/mode"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rockielab/rockie-claude/mode/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 mode

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/rockielab/rockie-claude/mode"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rockielab/rockie-claude/mode.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 118 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,408 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 $0.00118 $0.01408
Opus 5 $0.00059 $0.00704
Sonnet 5 $0.00024 $0.00282
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00141

Measured 10d ago against content hash 300dfb1fda27, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mode 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 10d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (runtime/mode.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

  • mode — 100% identical, 16 lines differ
project-harness/skills/mode/SKILL.md · 145 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 145 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/mode — operational overlays on the taste corpus

Identity is centralized in .rockie/taste/. Modes carry the small, context-dependent policy bits that flip between sessions: paper-deadline vs. exploratory vs. dogfooding vs. teaching.

A mode is a TOML file at .rockie/taste/modes/<name>.toml. The active mode is named in .rockie/taste/modes/_active (one line). SessionStart loads it and surfaces a compact summary alongside the researcher identity from INDEX.md.

When to use

  • A new context (deadline, area, register) where overrides apply.
  • The harness behavior shouldn't change who you are, just what you optimize for this session.

Subcommands

python3 .claude/skills/mode/runtime/mode.py show            # active mode + diff vs central
python3 .claude/skills/mode/runtime/mode.py list            # available modes
python3 .claude/skills/mode/runtime/mode.py switch <name>   # atomic flip _active
python3 .claude/skills/mode/runtime/mode.py new <name> [--from <template>]
python3 .claude/skills/mode/runtime/mode.py edit <name>     # opens in $EDITOR
python3 .claude/skills/mode/runtime/mode.py diff <a> <b>    # compare two modes
python3 .claude/skills/mode/runtime/mode.py active          # print just the active name

Built-in templates

Shipped in <rockie>/project-harness/skills/mode/templates/. The installer copies them into .rockie/taste/modes/ on first run if that directory doesn't exist yet.

Template When
default No overrides — central corpus is canonical
paper-crunch Deadline-locked: scope_lock, formal register, smoke gates, Opus on attack/review
exploratory No scope lock, broad reading window, sonnet-first, register=lab-notebook
dogfooding Harness self-modification or first-run testing — tight budgets, fast cycles
learning Educational sessions: register=teaching, gates relaxed, Opus on explanations

Schema (every field optional)

name = "<slug>"
description = "<one sentence>"

[hardware]
hardware_type = "H100" | "A100" | "H200"
spot_only = true
on_demand_allowed = false
gpu_budget_dollars_per_session = 50

[reading]
focus_arxiv_categories = ["cs.LG"]
exclude_categories = ["q-bio.NC"]
recency_window_months = 6
prefer_venues = ["NeurIPS", "ICML"]

[methodology]
success_criteria_override = "<prose>"
required_ablations = ["param-matched-flat"]
allow_negative_result = true

[risk]
sanity_check_above_dollars = 10
session_max_dollars = 80
require_smoke_before_real_run = true

[output]
register = "formal-paper" | "lab-notebook" | "teaching" | "code-comment"
default_target = "<paper / blog / tinker>"

[workflow]
scope_lock = true
require_clean_before_commit = true
require_audit_subagent_before_train = true
prefer_opus_for = ["attack", "novelty-check"]
prefer_sonnet_for = ["fix-list", "research-collation"]

[dismissals]
active_categories = ["ml-architectural"]   # which DISMISSALS.md tags
                                            # are load-bearing this mode

[deadline]
target_date = "YYYY-MM-DD"
scope_lock = true

Read the full file on GitHub · 145 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 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. 10d ago First seen · 145 lines · 118 tokens per session scan A 300dfb1fda27

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mode is a skill published in the GitHub repository Rockielab/rockie-claude (21 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 118 tokens to every session and 1,408 once invoked, about $0.0006 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.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

auto-run

Autonomous personalized research loop. Use when the user wants to research a topic autonomously, run a research loop, start adaptive research, or use presets like technique-scout or cross-domain. Triggers on: 'auto run', 'research loop', 'autonomous research', 'run research', 'start research', 'adaptive research'.

primeline-ai/claude-adaptive-research · 70 tokens

autoresearch

Orchestrates end-to-end autonomous AI research projects using a two-loop architecture. The inner loop runs rapid experiment iterations with clear optimization targets. The outer loop synthesizes results, identifies patterns, and steers research direction. Routes to domain-specific skills for execution, supports…

Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs · 98 tokens

git-commit

A guided Git commit workflow that examines changes and creates a commit message using the Conventional Commits format, a shared style for labeling changes such as features, fixes, tests, or documentation.

adongwanai/learn-workbuddy · 0 tokens

pi-sync

Daily upstream-sync job for the pi Go port — fetch upstream pi, triage every change since the recorded pin, port what's in scope, verify idiomatic + parity via independent reviews, update the ledger, and push. Use for "sync with upstream", "porting job", or as the scheduled daily run.

sky-valley/pi · 66 tokens

pi-triage

Decide whether an upstream pi change needs porting to the Go port. Use when assessing upstream commits/PRs ("should we port X?"), or as the triage stage of /pi-sync. Outputs a WHY/WHAT/SCOPE verdict per change.

sky-valley/pi · 57 tokens

pi-parity-review

Adversarially verify that a ported change is faithful to the original pi implementation (TS source + published npm build). Use after porting upstream pi changes, or standalone on any area of this repo ("is X faithful to pi?").

sky-valley/pi · 54 tokens