dp-patterns

A reference guide to dynamic programming, a way to solve problems by breaking them into smaller repeated parts and reusing their answers. It covers eight common patterns, Python templates, edge cases, and mistakes.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for optimization, counting, and subsequence problems with repeated subproblems, including tasks involving capacities, indexes, or visited items.
Why use it?
It helps you recognize when dynamic programming fits and avoid incorrect states, formulas, starting cases, or calculation order.

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/sequenzia/agent-alchemy/dp-patterns
Any agent
npx skills add sequenzia/agent-alchemy --skill dp-patterns
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sequenzia/agent-alchemy

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 31 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 5,396 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00031 $0.05396
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.02698
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.01079
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00540

Measured 2d ago against content hash e5de460a128f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

dp-patterns 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 2d 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.

claude/cs-tools/skills/dp-patterns/SKILL.md · 429 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 429 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Dynamic Programming Patterns

This reference covers eight foundational dynamic programming patterns commonly encountered in algorithmic problem solving. Each pattern includes recognition signals to identify when a problem maps to the technique, a working Python template, and specific edge cases and mistakes to watch for. Load this skill when solving optimization, counting, or subsequence problems that exhibit optimal substructure and overlapping subproblems.

General DP Approach

Before selecting a specific pattern, apply this checklist:

  1. Identify the state: What information do you need to uniquely describe a subproblem? (index, remaining capacity, bitmask of visited nodes)
  2. Define the recurrence: How does the answer for the current state relate to answers for smaller states?
  3. Establish base cases: What are the trivial subproblems with known answers?
  4. Determine iteration order: Ensure every state is computed before it is needed (bottom-up) or use memoization (top-down)
  5. Optimize space: If dp[i] depends only on dp[i-1] (or a small window), use rolling arrays instead of the full table

Pattern Recognition Table

Trigger Signals Technique Typical Complexity
"count the number of ways", "how many distinct paths" Fibonacci / Climbing Stairs O(N) time, O(1) space
"maximize value with weight limit", "partition into two equal subsets" 0/1 Knapsack O(N * W) time, O(W) space
"longest common subsequence", "minimum edit operations" LCS / Edit Distance O(N * M) time, O(min(N, M)) space
"longest increasing subsequence", "minimum number of envelopes" LIS O(N log N) time, O(N) space
"unique paths in grid", "minimum cost to reach bottom-right" Grid DP O(R * C) time, O(C) space
"maximum subarray sum", "best contiguous segment" Kadane's Algorithm O(N) time, O(1) space
"fewest coins to make amount", "ways to combine denominations" Coin Change / Unbounded Knapsack O(N * amount) time, O(amount) space
"visit all nodes exactly once", "assign N items optimally", N <= 20 Bitmask DP O(2^N * N) time, O(2^N) space

Read the full file on GitHub · 429 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. 2d ago First seen · 429 lines · 31 tokens per session scan A e5de460a128f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

dp-patterns is a skill published in the GitHub repository sequenzia/agent-alchemy (43 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 31 tokens to every session and 5,396 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.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

rulesync

Generates and syncs AI rule configuration files (.cursorrules, CLAUDE.md, copilot-instructions.md) across 20+ coding tools from a single source. Use when syncing AI rules, running rulesync commands, importing or generating rule files, or managing shared AI coding configurations.

dyoshikawa/rulesync · 64 tokens

establishing-project-context

Use when the user asks to establish shared project language, or project work exposes a conflicting, renamed, or deprecated domain term that needs active semantic modeling. Routine small tasks stay on the fast path.

GanyuanRan/Aegis · 45 tokens

autoprompt

Explicit-only useful-first orchestration. Invoke /autoprompt to turn a mission into one executable roadmap, build dependency-safe lanes, and verify the result with independent reviewers. Never infer invocation from ordinary requests. Never resume from leftover artifacts without an explicit resume instruction.

Spielewoy/autoprompt-skill · 56 tokens

memstack-business-gdpr

Use this skill when the user says 'GDPR', 'data protection', 'privacy compliance', 'DPA', 'DSAR', 'data subject request', 'cookie consent', 'privacy audit', 'CCPA', or asks 'do I need GDPR for this repo'. Scans the repository to detect what personal data is collected, classifies sensitivity, determines whether GDPR…

cwinvestments/memstack · 121 tokens

echo

Use when the user references past sessions, asks 'what did we do', 'do you remember', 'last session', 'recall', or 'continue from'.

cwinvestments/memstack · 35 tokens

backend-builder

Используй только внутри активного Codex Project Autopilot-проекта по утверждённому плану; не включай для обычных backend-задач вне автопилота.

hashgraph-online/awesome-codex-plugins · 43 tokens