search-first

search-first is a skill for Claude Code from shimo4228/claude-harness. It costs 176 tokens per session (1,525 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of search-first, MIT.

A research step used before adding a feature, integration, library, or utility. It searches package registries, GitHub, MCP services, and existing skills for something that already fits.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to define the requirement and constraints, search likely sources, compare existing options, and record whether to reuse, adapt, or build.
Why use it?
It reduces duplicated code and helps choose an existing solution before building a new one.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: user-invocable in frontmatter. Also seen: mentions subagents; mentions Claude Code.

Good fit Use it to define the requirement and constraints, search likely sources, compare existing options, and record whether to reuse, adapt, or build.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/shimo4228/claude-harness/search-first
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 shimo4228/claude-harness --skill search-first
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/shimo4228/claude-harness

Made for: Claude Code.

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 search-first

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/shimo4228/claude-harness/search-first/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/shimo4228/claude-harness/search-first)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/shimo4228/claude-harness/search-first"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/shimo4228/claude-harness/search-first/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 search-first

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/shimo4228/claude-harness/search-first"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/shimo4228/claude-harness/search-first.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 176 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,525 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 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 5.1 $0.00176 $0.01525
Opus 5 $0.00088 $0.00763
Sonnet 5 $0.00035 $0.00305
Haiku 4.5 $0.00018 $0.00153

Measured 8d ago against content hash 67f755eed426, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

search-first 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 8d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to search-first — 0 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.

skills/search-first/SKILL.md · 120 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 120 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/search-first — Research Before You Code

Before writing a new feature, utility, integration, or picking a library, search for an existing solution first. The best code is code you don't have to write.

This skill is discipline, not mechanism. The how of searching — parallel subagents, live documentation lookup, registry queries — belongs to your agent harness and keeps changing. What this skill pins down is the part that survives those changes: articulate before you search, search by source priority, and end with a recorded verdict. Lead with the discipline; delegate the mechanism.

Step 0 — Articulate the requirement (mandatory, user-visible text)

Before any tool call or subagent, write 2–3 sentences of plain assistant text (not buried inside tool arguments) stating:

  • What functionality is needed — concretely, not "X support"
  • Language / framework the implementation will use
  • Constraints — existing deps, performance limits, license requirements

Why: this externalizes the search query so the user can redirect before you spend effort, and it leaves an auditable record. A subagent call whose args carry the requirement does not satisfy this step — the user reads chat text, not tool arguments. Emit the articulation as text first, then call tools whose arguments may mirror it.

Step 1 — Search by source priority

Check these in order; stop early when you find a strong match:

  1. This reporg / grep through the relevant modules and tests. The thing may already exist here.
  2. Package registries — npm / PyPI / crates / Go modules for the language in play.
  3. MCP servers — already-configured servers first, then the registry. The capability may already be wired in.
  4. Installed skills / agents / tools — your harness may already carry it.
  5. Maintained OSS / templates — code-search GitHub before writing net-new code.

Query live documentation at decision time (e.g. context7, or the registry itself) rather than trusting remembered package facts — recommendations age.

Read the full file on GitHub · 120 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. 8d ago First seen · 120 lines · 176 tokens per session scan A 67f755eed426

Subscribe to this mod's changes

search-first is a skill published in the GitHub repository shimo4228/claude-harness (2 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 176 tokens to every session and 1,525 once invoked, about $0.0009 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to search-first, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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