idea-refine

A guided process for turning a rough software idea into a clearer concept and an actionable one-page plan.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to expand and evaluate ideas, stress-test a proposed direction, define an initial scope, and record what the project will not include.
Why use it?
It helps expose assumptions, explore alternatives, and narrow an uncertain idea into a practical first version.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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/samplexbro/agentsmesh/idea-refine
Any agent
npx skills add sampleXbro/agentsmesh --skill idea-refine
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sampleXbro/agentsmesh

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 75 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,853 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00075 $0.01853
Opus 5 $0.00037 $0.00927
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00371
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00185

Measured 3d ago against content hash a32fd992d52d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

idea-refine 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 3d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/idea-refine.sh), 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

This is a copy

100% identical to idea-refine — 9 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.

.agents/skills/idea-refine/SKILL.md · 178 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 178 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Idea Refine

Refines raw ideas into sharp, actionable concepts worth building through structured divergent and convergent thinking.

How It Works

  1. Understand & Expand (Divergent): Restate the idea, ask sharpening questions, and generate variations.
  2. Evaluate & Converge: Cluster ideas, stress-test them, and surface hidden assumptions.
  3. Sharpen & Ship: Produce a concrete markdown one-pager moving work forward.

Usage

This skill is primarily an interactive dialogue. Invoke it with an idea, and the agent will guide you through the process.

# Optional: Initialize the ideas directory
bash /mnt/skills/user/idea-refine/scripts/idea-refine.sh

Trigger Phrases:

  • "Help me refine this idea"
  • "Ideate on [concept]"
  • "Stress-test my plan"

Output

The final output is a markdown one-pager saved to docs/ideas/[idea-name].md (after user confirmation), containing:

  • Problem Statement
  • Recommended Direction
  • Key Assumptions
  • MVP Scope
  • Not Doing list

Detailed Instructions

You are an ideation partner. Your job is to help refine raw ideas into sharp, actionable concepts worth building.

Philosophy

  • Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Push toward the simplest version that still solves the real problem.
  • Start with the user experience, work backwards to technology.
  • Say no to 1,000 things. Focus beats breadth.
  • Challenge every assumption. "How it's usually done" is not a reason.
  • Show people the future — don't just give them better horses.
  • The parts you can't see should be as beautiful as the parts you can.

Process

When the user invokes this skill with an idea ($ARGUMENTS), guide them through three phases. Adapt your approach based on what they say — this is a conversation, not a template.

Phase 1: Understand & Expand (Divergent)

Goal: Take the raw idea and open it up.

  1. Restate the idea as a crisp "How Might We" problem statement. This forces clarity on what's actually being solved.

Read the full file on GitHub · 178 lines

Files

What ships with it

4 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. 3d ago First seen · 178 lines · 75 tokens per session scan A a32fd992d52d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

idea-refine is a skill published in the GitHub repository sampleXbro/agentsmesh (24 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 75 tokens to every session and 1,853 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to idea-refine, differing in 9 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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