What is file-retrieval?

A file-finding and delivery workflow for the local computer. It searches for a requested file, shows a preview, and sends it only after the user confirms.

Use it to locate files on the desktop, home folder, Documents, or Downloads, preview the matches, and deliver the selected file.

It reduces the risk of sending the wrong file and keeps file retrieval as a two-step process.

file-retrieval — Skill for Claude Code and Codex by THU-SAGE

Install

Getting it into your agent

There is no command for this one: it runs only inside a plugin, and the catalogue could not identify which plugin ships it. The source is linked below.

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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/thu-sage/syll/file-retrieval/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/thu-sage/syll/file-retrieval)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/thu-sage/syll/file-retrieval"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/thu-sage/syll/file-retrieval/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/thu-sage/syll/file-retrieval"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/thu-sage/syll/file-retrieval.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 1,544 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	$0.00042	$0.01544
Opus 5	$0.00021	$0.00772
Sonnet 5	$0.00008	$0.00309
Haiku 4.5	$0.00004	$0.00154

Measured 9d ago against content hash f5908e888725, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

file-retrieval 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 9d 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.

syll/skills/file-retrieval/SKILL.md · 113 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 113 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

File Retrieval

Use this skill when the user asks you to find a file on the local machine and deliver it through the current channel. Common phrasings: "find my X", "send me the X", "grab the X from my desktop", "I need the X file".

This skill uses three tools: find_file, file_preview, attach_file.

Procedure

The workflow spans two turns. Never collapse them into one.

Turn 1: discovery and preview

Send a short message announcing the search. Example: "going to check the desktop now" / "looking for it now".
Call find_file(query=..., root=..., extensions=[...]). Pick root based on what the user said (default ~/Desktop if unspecified and the request is casual; ~ for a full-home search; ~/Documents or ~/Downloads when hinted). Always pass extensions when the file type is known (e.g. ["pptx","ppt"], ["pdf"]).
Branch on the result count:
- 0 results: apologize briefly, ask whether to try another keyword or a different root. End the turn. Do not preview.
- 1 result: continue to step 4. One hit is not implicit confirmation — still preview and still ask.
- 2–5 results: continue to step 4.
- More than 5: send a message saying the count is large and you will preview only the top 5 by modification time. Slice to the top 5 and continue.
Send a message announcing the preview step. Example: "found N, rendering thumbnails so you can pick".
Call file_preview(paths=[...]) with all candidate paths in one call.
Produce the final reply for this turn. It must contain:
- A numbered list of candidates.
- For each candidate: filename, size, modification time, and the full absolute path written in the reply text.
- A question asking the user to pick.
Stop this turn. Do not call attach_file yet.

Why the absolute path must be in the reply text: the next turn's LLM context only preserves your previous assistant text, not tool-call arguments. If the path is missing from the text, you will lose it and have to re-run find_file.

Read the full file on GitHub · 113 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.

9d ago First seen · 113 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A f5908e888725

Subscribe to this mod's changes

file-retrieval is a skill published in the GitHub repository THU-SAGE/syll (303 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 1,544 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-08-30.

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