occam

occam is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from somnus0x/agt-skill-pack. It costs 43 tokens per session (1,143 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A review method that asks whether a smaller, simpler solution could solve the same problem.

In plain words
What is it for?
Reviewing planned fixes, questioning whether each part is needed, and choosing the smallest workable implementation.
Why use it?
It challenges unnecessary complexity before an overbuilt fix becomes part of the codebase.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md.

Good fit Reviewing planned fixes, questioning whether each part is needed, and choosing the smallest workable implementation.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack/occam
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 somnus0x/agt-skill-pack --skill occam
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 occam

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack/occam/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack/occam)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack/occam"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack/occam/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 occam

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack/occam"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/somnus0x/agt-skill-pack/occam.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 43 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,143 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 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 5.1 $0.00043 $0.01143
Opus 5.5 $0.00017 $0.00457
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00009 $0.00229
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00114

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 5788d959aa5f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

occam 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 1mo 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.

skills/occam/SKILL.md · 126 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 126 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Occam — The Simpler-Thing Test

You proposed a fix. Before it ships, prove the smaller version doesn't work.

Why

AI coding tools are biased toward comprehensive solutions. You ask for a bug fix, you get a new service with 10 columns, 3 methods, and wiring at 12 call sites. The bug needed one database constraint.

Occam forces a checkpoint: show the minimum version, the proposed version, and the overbuilt version side by side. Then justify why you're not shipping the smallest one.

This is NOT a veto. Some complexity is correct. The point is to make the trade explicit before you commit.

When to use

Explicit

Say /occam or "is this necessary", "feels complex", "simpler", "why is this so much code", "in my head it's just X".

Auto-fire (add to your CLAUDE.md)

Tell your AI to fire Occam automatically before finalizing any plan that introduces:

  • A new database table or column whose only purpose is the current bug
  • A new service, module, or provider
  • A new helper class wrapping a single existing call
  • A new background worker, cron, or scheduled job
  • A new event type, queue, or pub/sub channel
  • A new feature flag with only one consumer
  • A function longer than ~60 lines that's mostly defensive branches
  • Any abstraction justified by "we might need this later"

Don't fire for: one-line fixes, renames, test additions, config changes, following an existing pattern, or when you've explicitly said "go ahead, full version."

The four questions

Run in order. Show your work.

1. Restate the user-visible bug in one sentence

What does the user see today that they shouldn't? If you can't say it in one sentence, the fix scope is too broad.

Example: "When a user submits a form once, two identical records appear."

2. What is the minimum change that closes that exact sentence?

Often: one DB constraint, one early-return, one config flip, one bug fix in a single function. Resist the urge to refactor surrounding code.

Example: "Add a UNIQUE constraint. INSERT-or-skip on every request. ~30 LOC, no new module."

Read the full file on GitHub · 126 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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. 1mo ago First seen · 126 lines · 43 tokens per session scan A 5788d959aa5f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

occam is a skill published in the GitHub repository somnus0x/agt-skill-pack (74 stars, last pushed 18d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 1,143 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 2026-08-30.

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