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.
npx skills add seaworld008/Commonly-used-high-value-skills --skill andrej-karpathy-skillsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/seaworld008/Commonly-used-high-value-skillsWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/seaworld008/commonly-used-high-value-skills/andrej-karpathy-skills)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/seaworld008/commonly-used-high-value-skills/andrej-karpathy-skills"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/seaworld008/commonly-used-high-value-skills/andrej-karpathy-skills/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/seaworld008/commonly-used-high-value-skills/andrej-karpathy-skills"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/seaworld008/commonly-used-high-value-skills/andrej-karpathy-skills.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
SkillSpector: 2 findings, up to high
These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →
- high Memory Poisoning · line 142 Skill manipulates agent memory, state, or stored context. Memory corruption can alter personality, override safety rules, or cause unpredictable behavior.Fix: Protect agent memory and state from modification by untrusted content. Use read-only memory for critical instructions and validate all state changes.
- medium Agent Snooping · line 8 Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00037 | $0.01734 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00018 | $0.00867 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00007 | $0.00347 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00173 |
Grade A, and why
andrej-karpathy-skills 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 12d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 214 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Andrej Karpathy Skills
Use this skill to keep AI-assisted engineering grounded, simple, and verifiable. It is especially useful for backend, architecture, refactoring, debugging, migrations, and any task where an agent might overbuild, guess, or change unrelated code.
The core idea is simple: do not let the model drift. Make assumptions explicit, prefer minimal changes, touch only what the request requires, and verify with concrete checks before calling the work done.
When to Use
- Writing backend code, API changes, migrations, data access logic, or architecture-sensitive code.
- Refactoring code where accidental behavior changes are risky.
- Debugging a production issue or a failing test.
- Reviewing AI-generated code for overengineering, hidden assumptions, or missing verification.
- Implementing a user request that is ambiguous, cross-cutting, or easy to over-scope.
- Making changes in an unfamiliar codebase.
- Working under constraints such as dirty git state, existing style, generated files, or ownership boundaries.
- Producing a plan before code or a concise review after code.
Skip When
- The user explicitly asks for brainstorming without implementation.
- The task is pure content writing, design exploration, or research without code changes.
- A different skill with stricter domain procedure applies, such as a security audit, incident response, or regulated compliance workflow.
Core Principles
- Think before coding.
- Simplicity first.
- Surgical changes.
- Goal-driven execution.
- Verification before completion.
- Respect the existing system.
- Surface uncertainty early.
- Prefer reversible, observable steps.
Principle 1: Think Before Coding
Before implementation, establish what is known and what is assumed.
- Read the relevant files before changing them.
- Identify the exact behavior the user wants changed.
- Name any ambiguity that changes the implementation path.
- If there are multiple viable approaches, pick the smallest one that fits the repo.
- If an approach creates a new abstraction, justify why it reduces real complexity.
- If the task crosses module boundaries, map those boundaries first.
- If the codebase already has a local pattern, use it.
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.
- 12d ago First seen · 214 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A c766537eecfb
andrej-karpathy-skills is a skill published in the GitHub repository seaworld008/Commonly-used-high-value-skills (70 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 1,734 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 2026-08-30.
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