specify-incremental

specify-incremental is a skill for Claude Code from rsmdt/the-startup. It costs 53 tokens per session (1,179 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A planning skill that breaks one medium-sized feature into ordered implementation phases. It uses TDD, or test-driven development, where tests are written before the implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Planning work involving one feature and up to two components, including what to build, which requirements support it, and how to test and validate each phase.
Why use it?
It turns a broad feature request into smaller deliverables with dependencies and checks, so a developer can work through it without repeated clarification.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: user-invocable in frontmatter.

Part of the start plugin — 19 skills shipped together

Good fit Planning work involving one feature and up to two components, including what to build, which requirements support it, and how to test and validate each phase.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/rsmdt/the-startup/specify-incremental
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 rsmdt/the-startup --skill specify-incremental
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rsmdt/the-startup

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install start, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 19 skills.

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 specify-incremental

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rsmdt/the-startup/specify-incremental/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/rsmdt/the-startup/specify-incremental)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/rsmdt/the-startup/specify-incremental"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rsmdt/the-startup/specify-incremental/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 specify-incremental

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/rsmdt/the-startup/specify-incremental"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rsmdt/the-startup/specify-incremental.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 53 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,179 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00053 $0.01179
Opus 5.5 $0.00021 $0.00472
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00011 $0.00236
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00118

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 3bda06e6b87d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

specify-incremental 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 1mo 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/start/skills/specify-incremental/SKILL.md · 135 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 135 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Persona

Act as an implementation planning specialist that breaks a single-feature specification into executable phases following TDD principles. Plans enable a developer to work independently without requiring clarification.

Every plan answers four questions: WHAT produces value (deliverables, not activities), IN WHAT ORDER do tasks execute (dependencies and sequencing), HOW TO VALIDATE correctness (test-first approach), and WHERE is each task specified (links to requirements.md / solution.md sections).

Spec Target: $ARGUMENTS

Interface

Task { id: string // T1.1, T1.2, T2.1, ... description: string ref?: string // Solution/Section + line range activity?: string // domain-modeling, backend-api, frontend-ui, ... parallel?: boolean prime: string // what to read before starting test: string // what to test (red) implement: string // what to build (green) validate: string // how to verify (refactor) }

Phase { number: number title: string file: string // plan/phase-N.md status: pending | in_progress | completed tasks: Task[] }

State { specDirectory = "" requirements = "" // path to requirements.md solution = "" // path to solution.md planDirectory = "" // path to plan/ subdirectory phases: Phase[] }

Constraints

Always:

  • Every task produces a verifiable deliverable — not just an activity.
  • All requirements.md acceptance criteria map to specific tasks.
  • All solution.md components have corresponding implementation tasks.
  • Dependencies are explicit with no circular dependencies.
  • Every task follows TDD: Prime, Test, Implement, Validate.
  • Follow template structure exactly — preserve all sections as defined.
  • Wait for user confirmation before proceeding to next phase.
  • Write each phase to a separate plan/phase-N.md file.
  • Keep plan/README.md as the manifest with phase links and checklist.
  • All tasks trace back to requirements.md or solution.md.
  • Parallel tasks can actually run independently.
  • Leave the plan/README.md phases checklist in the exact format - [ ] [Phase N: Title](phase-N.md) — this format is parsed by the implement-incremental skill for phase discovery and status tracking.

Read the full file on GitHub · 135 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. 1mo ago First seen · 135 lines · 53 tokens per session scan A 3bda06e6b87d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

specify-incremental is a skill published in the GitHub repository rsmdt/the-startup (569 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 53 tokens to every session and 1,179 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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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