writing-plans

writing-plans is a skill for Claude Code from transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers. It costs 21 tokens per session (2,387 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A guide for turning a software specification into a detailed, step-by-step implementation plan before changing code. It explains what files, tests, and documentation an engineer should consider.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan multi-step coding tasks, identify files to change, define testing steps, and break large requirements into smaller tasks.
Why use it?
It helps developers work safely in an unfamiliar codebase by making the required work and checks explicit. TDD, or test-driven development, means writing tests as part of guiding the implementation.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md; mentions subagents; mentions Claude Code.

Part of the herdrpowers plugin — 16 skills, 7 commands shipped together

Good fit Use it to plan multi-step coding tasks, identify files to change, define testing steps, and break large requirements into smaller tasks.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers/writing-plans
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 transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers --skill writing-plans
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install herdrpowers, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 16 skills, 7 commands.

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 writing-plans

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers/writing-plans/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers/writing-plans)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers/writing-plans"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers/writing-plans/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 writing-plans

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers/writing-plans"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers/writing-plans.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 21 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,387 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00021 $0.02387
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.01193
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00477
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00239

Measured 10d ago against content hash e3811c30e41a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

writing-plans 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 10d 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/writing-plans/SKILL.md · 219 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 219 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Writing Plans

Placeholder resolution: <KEY> placeholders in this file (such as <PLAN_PATH_PATTERN> or <TARGETED_TEST_COMMAND>) resolve from the Herdrpowers Configuration section of the repository's CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md. If that section is missing, initialize it with the pack's init workflow (/herdrpowers:init on Claude Code plugin installs; commands/init.md otherwise).

Overview

Write comprehensive implementation plans assuming the engineer has zero context for our codebase and questionable taste. Document everything they need to know: which files to touch for each task, code, testing, docs they might need to check, how to test it. Give them the whole plan as bite-sized tasks. DRY. YAGNI. TDD. Frequent commits.

Assume they are a skilled developer, but know almost nothing about our toolset or problem domain. Assume they don't know good test design very well.

Announce at start: "I'm using the writing-plans skill to create the implementation plan."

Context: If working in an isolated worktree, it should have been created via the using-git-worktrees skill at execution time.

Save plans to: <PLAN_PATH_PATTERN>

  • (User preferences for plan location override this default)

Scope Check

If the spec covers multiple independent subsystems, it should have been broken into sub-project specs during brainstorming. If it wasn't, suggest breaking this into separate plans — one per subsystem. Each plan should produce working, testable software on its own.

Repository Discovery

Before choosing files, discover the current code shape.

  • If a codegraph plugin/tool is available, use it to search relevant files and symbols, then inspect callers, callees, and impact surface for the planned changes.
  • If codegraph is unavailable, continue with ordinary repo exploration (rg, file reads, recent commits). Codegraph is optional; do not block plan creation because it is missing.

File Structure

Before defining tasks, map out which files will be created or modified and what each one is responsible for. This is where decomposition decisions get locked in.

Read the full file on GitHub · 219 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.

  1. 10d ago First seen · 219 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A e3811c30e41a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

writing-plans is a skill published in the GitHub repository transparent-pegasus/herdrpowers (11 stars, last pushed 13d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 2,387 once invoked, about $0.0001 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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