using-skills

using-skills is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Threat-Vector-Security/guardian-agent. It costs 0 tokens per session (279 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A starting workflow for choosing and applying the right coding skill. It checks the task against available processes and recommends a narrow combination of skills when needed.

In plain words
What is it for?
Selecting skills for a coding task, deciding whether a process or domain skill applies, and bootstrapping work when the user asks for help choosing or applying one.
Why use it?
It reduces the chance of using irrelevant or overlapping instructions. It also makes sure the relevant skill instructions are read before work begins.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/threat-vector-security/guardian-agent/using-skills
Any agent
npx skills add Threat-Vector-Security/guardian-agent --skill using-skills
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Threat-Vector-Security/guardian-agent

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 using-skills

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/threat-vector-security/guardian-agent/using-skills.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/threat-vector-security/guardian-agent/using-skills)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/threat-vector-security/guardian-agent/using-skills"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/threat-vector-security/guardian-agent/using-skills.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 279 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00000 $0.00279
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00139
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00056
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00028

Measured 6d ago against content hash 0e4159f7fa85, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

using-skills 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 6d 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/using-skills/SKILL.md · 30 lines

What it actually says

Using Skills

Use this as a bootstrap workflow when the user explicitly wants help choosing or applying the right skill.

Workflow

  1. Check whether the task clearly maps to an existing process skill, domain skill, or both.
  2. Prefer one process skill and one domain skill over loading many overlapping skills.
  3. Read the relevant SKILL.md files before acting; do not rely on memory of their contents.
  4. If no skill clearly applies, proceed without forcing one.

Selection Rules

  • Prefer the narrowest skill that matches the user's actual request.
  • Prefer native skills and managed-provider integrations over reviewed third-party skills when both cover the same area.
  • Reviewed third-party skills may be enabled, but treat them as narrower and lower-priority than first-party skills unless the user explicitly names the product or the match is unusually specific.
  • Do not treat marketplace popularity as a reason to use a skill.

Pairing Pattern

  • process + domain is usually enough
  • more than two skills should be rare
  • if two skills conflict, pick the one with the tighter trigger and more relevant tool surface

Gotchas

  • Do not load multiple overlapping domain skills when one narrower skill fits.
  • Do not assume marketplace popularity means the skill is appropriate or safe.
  • Do not rely on memory of a skill body when the skill is clearly relevant; read it first.
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. 6d ago First seen · 30 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 0e4159f7fa85

Subscribe to this mod's changes

using-skills is a skill published in the GitHub repository Threat-Vector-Security/guardian-agent (11 stars, last pushed today), licensed Apache-2.0. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 279 tokens. 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.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

continuum-tools-mcp

Connect MCP servers (Stdio/SSE/StreamableHTTP) to a Continuum agent, configure tool filtering, set up tool-context capture/injection (e.g. sessionid), and read run artifacts (UI widgets, structured tool data). Invoke when the user asks "connect MCP", "filesystem tool", "remote API tool", "auto-capture sessionid"…

shyftlabs/continuum · 94 tokens

continuum-llm-providers

Pick the right LLM provider, configure structured outputs, control context-window compression, and use the LLMClient directly. Provider routing is by model-string prefix; LiteLLM has been removed. Also covers Smart Gateway integration for multi-provider routing. Invoke when the user asks about "switch to Claude"…

shyftlabs/continuum · 105 tokens

continuum-handoffs

Build agent-to-agent transitions with Continuum's Handoff system — triage routing, history summarization modes (FULL/SUMMARY/RECENTN/HYBRID), cycle detection, depth tracking, return-to-parent. Invoke when the user asks "route customer requests to specialists", "agent that can transfer to another", "summarize history…

shyftlabs/continuum · 98 tokens

continuum-temporal

Build durable agent workflows with Temporal — sequential/parallel/loop/conditional steps, human-in-the-loop approval gates, custom workflows and activities. Invoke when the user asks "long-running workflow", "approval gate", "human in the loop", "retry on failure", "workflow survives restart", or anything…

shyftlabs/continuum · 68 tokens

continuum-agent

Build BaseAgent instances and run them with AgentRunner — covers fields, lifecycle hooks, structured outputs, ReAct mode, instruction modifiers, and the full execution flow. Invoke when the user asks "create an agent", "configure maxturns", "add lifecycle hooks", "structured output with Pydantic", or anything around…

shyftlabs/continuum · 74 tokens

continuum-evaluation

Evaluate agent quality with the EvaluatorAgent, generate golden datasets from a corpus, and run DeepEval/RAGAS metrics over conversations. Invoke when the user asks "test agent quality", "evaluate output", "RAG metrics", "DeepEval", "RAGAS", or "regression-test my agent".

shyftlabs/continuum · 68 tokens