A specification-writing workflow that turns an existing conversation into a saved plan for software or other work. A specification is a clear description of what will be made and how to tell when it is done.

Use it to create a feature plan, annual plan, curriculum, video plan, program outline, or other project specification.

It gives scattered decisions a single reference without requiring another interview. It also defines a main checkpoint for confirming completion.

How the-sid-dani/second-brain-os configures Codex

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to the-sid-dani/second-brain-os. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os/main/.agents/skills/to-spec/SKILL.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os

Made for: 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os/to-spec/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os/to-spec)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os/to-spec"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os/to-spec/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os/to-spec"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-sid-dani/second-brain-os/to-spec.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 85 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 1,020 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00085	$0.01020
Opus 5.5	$0.00034	$0.00408
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00017	$0.00204
Haiku 4.5	$0.00009	$0.00102

Measured 7d ago against content hash 7eff4ea1e923, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

to-spec 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 7d 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.

.agents/skills/to-spec/SKILL.md · 76 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 76 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

This skill takes the current conversation and what you know about the project and produces a spec (you may know it as a PRD). Do NOT interview the user. Just synthesize what you already know.

The work can be code or knowledge work: a feature, a Google Doc such as an annual plan, a curriculum, a video, a program. The template below works for both.

Process

Resolve the project. Read docs/agents/project-context.md and follow sections 1 and 2 to find the project and where its files go. If a skill earlier in this conversation already resolved it, reuse that answer.
Read the project. For code, explore the repo. For knowledge work, read the project folder: CLAUDE.md, memory.md, past versions of the artifact, any glossary.md and decisions/. Use the project's own vocabulary throughout the spec, and respect decisions already recorded.
Agree how we'll know it's right. Propose the highest single checkpoint that proves the work is done. This is the one confirmation the skill asks for, and it isn't an interview. If the conversation already settled the checkpoint, state it and move on without asking again. Prefer an existing checkpoint to a new one. The ideal number is one.
- Code: the test seam. Test at the highest seam possible, and prefer existing seams.
- Knowledge work: the acceptance point: who signs off, by when, and against what (last year's plan, the best past video, a rubric).
Write the spec using the template below, then save it as spec.md at the path from section 3 of the project-context doc (the project root, or <effort>/spec.md when the project already holds another effort). Add frontmatter type: spec, status: active, and description (one sentence), then append one line to the project's memory.md pointing at the new spec.

Never write the spec to .scratch/.

Problem Statement

The problem, from the perspective of the person facing it (a user, a reader, a viewer, a stakeholder).

Read the full file on GitHub · 76 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.

agents/openai.yaml 134 B

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.

7d ago First seen · 76 lines · 85 tokens per session scan A 7eff4ea1e923

Subscribe to this mod's changes

to-spec is a skill published in the GitHub repository the-sid-dani/second-brain-os (3 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 85 tokens to every session and 1,020 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-10-17.

Planning Writing and docs agent-harness chief-of-staff para personal-knowledge-management second-brain

apply

A browser-based job application workflow for submitting applications through services such as Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever, and Hacker News. It uses prepared candidate information, answers, job links, and cover letters.

tonydzi/second-brain-starter-kit · 66 tokens

rep-reply

Find live third-party GitHub issues and discussions on topics where you have real hands-on experience and artifacts, then reply with that experience to build reputation. Use when asked to answer people about your work, find threads matching your expertise, or reply with evidence from your own setup.

tonydzi/second-brain-starter-kit · 59 tokens

dr-fanout

Fan one deep-research prompt out to several external LLMs at once through a logged-in browser, then collect the reports, archive the originals and synthesize a consensus. Use at the final stage of a research protocol, instead of hand-pasting one prompt into N sites. Triggers: "/dr-fanout", "fan out the DR"…

tonydzi/second-brain-starter-kit · 83 tokens

second-brain-os: Skill for Codex