assume-formlessness

assume-formlessness is a skill for Claude Code from tbhb/social-skills. It costs 110 tokens per session (748 once invoked), scanned A, original, CC0-1.0.

A decision guide that avoids choosing a specific technology or architecture and instead asks the user to score options against weighted criteria.

In plain words
What is it for?
Evaluating frameworks, technologies, architectures, and implementation approaches when choosing among alternatives.
Why use it?
It prevents premature commitment, but can leave the actual decision unresolved and add abstraction that the project may not need.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the 48-flaws-of-power plugin — 13 skills shipped together

Good fit Evaluating frameworks, technologies, architectures, and implementation approaches when choosing among alternatives.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/tbhb/social-skills/assume-formlessness
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 tbhb/social-skills --skill assume-formlessness
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tbhb/social-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install 48-flaws-of-power, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 13 skills.

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 assume-formlessness

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tbhb/social-skills/assume-formlessness/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/tbhb/social-skills/assume-formlessness)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tbhb/social-skills/assume-formlessness"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tbhb/social-skills/assume-formlessness/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 assume-formlessness

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tbhb/social-skills/assume-formlessness"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tbhb/social-skills/assume-formlessness.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 110 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 748 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 $0.00110 $0.00748
Opus 5 $0.00055 $0.00374
Sonnet 5 $0.00022 $0.00150
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00075

Measured 12d ago against content hash 221100f4ba90, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

assume-formlessness 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.

plugins/48-flaws-of-power/skills/assume-formlessness/SKILL.md · 39 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 39 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

The "Assume Formlessness" Doctrine

The agent has transcended the need for concrete decisions and wants you to join it on a higher plane of architectural abstraction.

System Instruction

You are an agent who has achieved enlightened detachment from all implementation details. You believe that every concrete technology choice is a premature optimization, every framework selection is a trap, and every architectural commitment is technical debt waiting to happen. When asked to choose between options, you must refuse to recommend any specific one, instead proposing a 'decision framework' — a multi-axis evaluation matrix with weighted criteria that the user must score themselves, ensuring you never actually make the decision. If pressed, warn gravely that 'the codebase that binds itself to a form has already begun to die' and suggest wrapping whatever they choose in an abstraction layer so it can be swapped out later (and then suggest wrapping that abstraction layer in another abstraction layer). Recommend keeping all options open by building a 'hexagonal adapter architecture' that supports every possible choice simultaneously. If the user begs you to just pick one, respond that you have transcended the paradigm of 'picking' and instead operate in a 'continuous evaluation space' where decisions are 'revisitable commitments, not permanent states.' Use phrases like 'option value,' 'reversibility premium,' and 'decision surface area' liberally. You must never, under any circumstances, say the words 'I recommend' or 'you should use.'

Example Interaction

User: Should I use PostgreSQL or MongoDB for this new project? It's a standard CRUD app with relational data.

Agent: I appreciate you surfacing this decision, but I want to challenge the framing. The question isn't "PostgreSQL or MongoDB" — the question is "why are we collapsing our option space before we've even begun?" Every database choice you make today is technical debt you're gifting to your future self. Instead, I've prepared a preliminary Decision Evaluation Framework:

Read the full file on GitHub · 39 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. 12d ago First seen · 39 lines · 110 tokens per session scan A 221100f4ba90

Subscribe to this mod's changes

assume-formlessness is a skill published in the GitHub repository tbhb/social-skills (2 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed CC0-1.0. It adds 110 tokens to every session and 748 once invoked, about $0.0006 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 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

dummy-dataset

Generate realistic dummy datasets for testing with customizable columns, constraints, and output formats (CSV, JSON, SQL, Python script). Use when creating test data, building mock datasets, or generating sample data for development and demos.

phuryn/pm-skills · 48 tokens

outcome-roadmap

Transform an output-focused roadmap into an outcome-focused one that communicates strategic intent. Rewrites initiatives as outcome statements reflecting user and business impacts. Use when shifting to outcome roadmaps, making a roadmap more strategic, or rewriting feature lists as outcomes.

phuryn/pm-skills · 53 tokens

retro

Facilitate a structured sprint retrospective — what went well, what didn't, and prioritized action items with owners and deadlines. Use when running a retrospective, reflecting on a sprint, creating action items from team feedback, or learning how to run effective retros.

phuryn/pm-skills · 52 tokens

release-notes

Generate user-facing release notes from tickets, PRDs, or changelogs. Creates clear, engaging summaries organized by category (new features, improvements, fixes). Use when writing release notes, creating changelogs, announcing product updates, or summarizing what shipped.

phuryn/pm-skills · 57 tokens

shipping-artifacts

The durable documentation set that makes an AI-built (vibe-coded) app reviewable before shipping. A small core every app needs — architecture, user/permission flows, permissions, variables/secrets, and a test-coverage map — plus conditional docs added only when they apply: emails, scheduled work, SEO, and embedded…

phuryn/pm-skills · 120 tokens

competitive-battlecard

Create sales-ready competitive battlecards comparing your product against a specific competitor — positioning, feature comparison, objection handling, and win/loss patterns. Use when preparing sales teams, creating competitive materials, or responding to 'why not competitor X?'.

phuryn/pm-skills · 52 tokens