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 skillmds/skillmd --skill five-element-spec-scope-before-codinggit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/skillmds/skillmdWrote 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/skillmds/skillmd/five-element-spec-scope-before-coding)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/skillmds/skillmd/five-element-spec-scope-before-coding"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/skillmds/skillmd/five-element-spec-scope-before-coding/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/skillmds/skillmd/five-element-spec-scope-before-coding"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/skillmds/skillmd/five-element-spec-scope-before-coding.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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 | $0.00062 | $0.01237 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00025 | $0.00495 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00012 | $0.00247 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00124 |
Grade A, and why
Five-Element Spec: Scope Before Coding 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 4d 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 — 134 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Five-Element Spec: Scope Before Coding
Translate a vague request or GitHub issue into a concrete, actionable spec before writing any code.
Core principle: If you can't write down what "done" looks like in two sentences, you're not ready to start.
The five-element spec is a lightweight planning format that forces explicit scope boundaries, testable acceptance criteria, and a binary done/not-done signal. It takes 5 minutes for small tasks and prevents hours of rework from scope mismatches, PR churn, and "I thought we wanted X" surprises.
When to Use
Always before:
- Starting work on a GitHub issue that hasn't been scoped into a task
- Implementing a feature where acceptance criteria aren't obvious
- Any task that will take >30 minutes (if you can't spec it in 5 minutes, the scope is unclear)
- Work that will produce a PR (scope ambiguity creates PR churn)
Skip for:
- Bug fix with a clear reproduction path and obvious scope
- Mechanical tasks (update a config value, rename a symbol, bump a version)
- Work already described in a task with a
success_criterionfield
Installation
Claude Code
cp -R skills/five-element-spec ~/.claude/skills/five-element-spec
Invoke with /five-element-spec before starting any non-trivial implementation task.
Direct repo/manual install
git clone https://github.com/agentskillexchange/skills.git
cp -R skills/five-element-spec ~/.agent-skills/five-element-spec
The 5-Element Spec
A complete spec answers five questions:
1. PROBLEM — What is broken or missing? What pain does this cause?
2. SCOPE — What is in scope? What is explicitly out of scope?
3. ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA — What must be true when this is done? (testable)
4. EDGE CASES — What unusual inputs or states must be handled?
5. SUCCESS CRITERION — One sentence: how will we know it's done?
Spec Template
## Problem
[1-2 sentences: what is broken/missing and why it matters]
## Scope
**In scope:**
- [Specific thing 1]
- [Specific thing 2]
**Out of scope (explicitly):**
- [Thing someone might expect but we're not doing]
## Acceptance Criteria
- [ ] [Testable condition 1 — "X works when Y" or "CI passes for Z"]
- [ ] [Testable condition 2]
- [ ] [Testable condition 3]
## Edge Cases
- [Input or state that needs explicit handling]
- [Boundary condition]
## Success Criterion
[One sentence. "When [action], [outcome] happens, verified by [test/check]."]
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.
- 4d ago First seen · 134 lines · 62 tokens per session scan A b2558e464a03
Five-Element Spec: Scope Before Coding is a skill published in the GitHub repository skillmds/skillmd (1 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 62 tokens to every session and 1,237 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 2026-09-19.
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