readme-that-converts

readme-that-converts is a skill for Claude Code from the-open-agent/oss-skills. It costs 117 tokens per session (2,104 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A guide for writing or rewriting a project's README, the main information page people see in a code repository.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when creating a README, improving a confusing or incomplete one, or preparing a repository for launch.
Why use it?
It helps visitors quickly understand what the project is, what problem it solves, and whether it suits them.

Skill for Claude Code

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

Part of the oss-skills plugin — 18 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it when creating a README, improving a confusing or incomplete one, or preparing a repository for launch.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/the-open-agent/oss-skills/readme-that-converts
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 the-open-agent/oss-skills --skill readme-that-converts
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/the-open-agent/oss-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install oss-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 18 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 readme-that-converts

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-open-agent/oss-skills/readme-that-converts/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-open-agent/oss-skills/readme-that-converts)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-open-agent/oss-skills/readme-that-converts"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-open-agent/oss-skills/readme-that-converts/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 readme-that-converts

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-open-agent/oss-skills/readme-that-converts"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-open-agent/oss-skills/readme-that-converts.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 117 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,104 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 $0.00117 $0.02104
Opus 5 $0.00059 $0.01052
Sonnet 5 $0.00023 $0.00421
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00210

Measured 11d ago against content hash a2c3ace6641d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

readme-that-converts 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 11d 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/readme-that-converts/SKILL.md · 212 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 212 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

A README That Converts

The README is the product page. For most visitors it is the entire product — they will decide in under 30 seconds whether to keep reading, and they are on a phone about 40% of the time.

The 30-second test

A first-time visitor must be able to answer, above the fold, without scrolling past the first screen:

  1. What is this? (category — "a CLI", "a Python library", "a Postgres extension")
  2. What problem does it solve? (their problem, in their words)
  3. Should I keep reading? (is it for their language/platform/scale)

If a visitor must scroll to learn what the project is, the README has already failed. Badges, logos, and tables of contents are not answers to those questions.

Apply the test literally: read only the first 15 lines aloud and ask whether a stranger could describe the project. If not, cut until they can.

Section order

Ordered by how many readers get that far. Later sections cost nothing; earlier ones are expensive real estate.

# Name
> One sentence. Under 15 words. Category + differentiator.

[badges: build | version | license]     ← 3–5 max, one line

[hero: screenshot, GIF, or 6-line code sample]

## Why <Name>?              ← 3–5 bullets, comparative, concrete
## Install                  ← copy-pasteable, one command if possible
## Quickstart               ← smallest complete working example
## Usage / Features         ← progressive depth
## Documentation            ← link out once docs exceed the README
## Comparison               ← if entering a crowded space
## Contributing             ← one line + link to CONTRIBUTING.md
## License

Notably absent near the top: table of contents (GitHub renders one from the outline menu), long feature matrices, architecture diagrams, and the origin story. They belong in docs/, or below the fold.

Writing the one-liner

Formula: <category> for <audience> that <differentiator>

  • "A build tool for JavaScript that skips bundling in development."
  • "A Rust HTTP client with connection pooling and no async runtime."
  • "Kubernetes operator that snapshots Postgres to S3 on a schedule."

Read the full file on GitHub · 212 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file 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. 11d ago First seen · 212 lines · 117 tokens per session scan A a2c3ace6641d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

readme-that-converts is a skill published in the GitHub repository the-open-agent/oss-skills (5 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 117 tokens to every session and 2,104 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

opentrons-dev-update

Guide users through setting up or updating a local development environment for the Opentrons opentrons/opentrons monorepo. Use this skill whenever a user mentions setting up or updating Opentrons development, cloning the Opentrons repo, installing or refreshing dev dependencies for Opentrons, getting started…

koji/opentrons-devenv-skill · 170 tokens

opentrons-dev-setup

Guide users through setting up a local development environment for the Opentrons opentrons/opentrons monorepo. Use this skill whenever a user mentions setting up Opentrons development, cloning the Opentrons repo, installing dev dependencies for Opentrons, getting started contributing to Opentrons, or hits errors…

koji/opentrons-devenv-skill · 164 tokens

cn-check

Install and run the Continue CLI (cn) to execute AI agent checks on local code changes. Use when asked to "run checks", "lint with AI", "review my changes with cn", or set up Continue CI locally.

continuedev/continue · 49 tokens

design-taste-frontend

Anti-slop frontend skill for landing pages, portfolios, and redesigns. The agent reads the brief, infers the right design direction, and ships interfaces that do not look templated. Real design systems when applicable, audit-first on redesigns, strict pre-flight check.

Leonxlnx/taste-skill · 61 tokens

image-to-code

Elite website image-to-code skill for Codex. For visually important web tasks, it must first generate the design image(s) itself, deeply analyze them, then implement the website to match them as closely as possible. In Codex, it must prefer large, readable, section-specific images instead of tiny compressed boards…

Leonxlnx/taste-skill · 116 tokens

brandkit

Premium brand-kit image generation skill for creating high-end brand-guidelines boards, logo systems, identity decks, and visual-world presentations. Trained for minimalist, cinematic, editorial, dark-tech, luxury, cultural, security, gaming, developer-tool, and consumer-app brand systems. Optimized for intentional…

Leonxlnx/taste-skill · 89 tokens