code-object-naming

code-object-naming is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from tottinge/otter-skills. It costs 100 tokens per session (1,930 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A guide for choosing clear names for code items such as variables, functions, classes, modules, and parameters. It evaluates whether a name accurately reveals the item’s purpose and context.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to review identifiers, choose better names, plan a rename refactor, or decide whether a name is incomplete, noisy, misleading, or appropriately specific.
Why use it?
Vague or misleading names slow down debugging and make code easier to misunderstand. The guide helps improve names without treating naming as more urgent than broken, unsafe, or untested code.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for Claude Code and Codex: shipped in a Claude Code plugin, but also agents/openai.yaml present.

Part of the otter-skills plugin — 6 skills shipped together

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/tottinge/otter-skills/code-object-naming
Any agent
npx skills add tottinge/otter-skills --skill code-object-naming
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tottinge/otter-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install otter-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 6 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 code-object-naming

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tottinge/otter-skills/code-object-naming.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/tottinge/otter-skills/code-object-naming)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tottinge/otter-skills/code-object-naming"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tottinge/otter-skills/code-object-naming.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 100 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,930 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 $0.00100 $0.01930
Opus 5 $0.00050 $0.00965
Sonnet 5 $0.00020 $0.00386
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00193

Measured 5d ago against content hash 8e20c728367c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

code-object-naming 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 5d 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/otter-skills/skills/code-object-naming/SKILL.md · 195 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 195 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Code Object Naming

Why Names Matter

Names are not for the compiler—they are for every human and AI that reads, debugs, extends, or maintains the code. Good names:

  • Speed defect location (~20% faster)
  • Reduce documentation and comments needed
  • Reduce misunderstanding-driven errors
  • Improve LLM comprehension efficiency (up to ~30% fewer tokens wasted)

Names are a secondary concern only when the code is broken, untested, unsafe, or undeployable. Once those are true, naming matters.


Diagnostic Workflow

Step 1 — Diagnose the Name

Locate the name on Belshee's naming process scale:

Stage What it looks like
Missing / Nonsense No name, UUID-style, tmp, data, info, obj
Honest but Incomplete Names one use but the item has broader scope
Honest and Complete Lists all purposes but is long and unfocused
Intention-Revealing Clear about purpose and carries needed context
Domain Abstraction Single-purposed, domain-consistent, concerns separated

Target: Intention-Revealing or Domain Abstraction. Acceptable temporary stop: Honest but Incomplete (never Nonsense).

If you cannot name it well right now, give it an obviously bad name (e.g., applesauce, poop, doomed_X) — easy to search, clearly temporary, embarrassing enough to remove before commit.


Step 2 — Assign the Right Part of Speech

Code object Preferred grammar Examples
Variables, parameters, fields Noun customer, hourly_rate, invoice
Data structures, classes Noun OrderQueue, PaymentRecord
Commands (mutations, actions) Verb phrase dial(), submit_order(), cancel()
Queries / attribute getters Noun preferred (not get_) customer.preferred_name() not get_preferred_name()
Interfaces, protocols, mixins Adjective / capability Serializable, FileLike, Runnable
Abstract base / interface pair Qualified noun MessengerSMSMessenger, EmailMessenger

Read the full file on GitHub · 195 lines

Files

What ships with it

8 files 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. 5d ago First seen · 195 lines · 100 tokens per session scan A 8e20c728367c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

code-object-naming is a skill published in the GitHub repository tottinge/otter-skills (3 stars, last pushed 6d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 100 tokens to every session and 1,930 once invoked, about $0.0005 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.

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