touch_file

A file-creation recovery step for cases where the normal writing tool cannot create a new file.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it after a new-file write fails because of missing directories, permissions, or a missing file path.
Why use it?
It prepares the missing folders and empty file so the writing operation can be tried again.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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/trtmn/agent-plugins/touch_file
Any agent
npx skills add trtmn/agent-plugins --skill touch_file
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/trtmn/agent-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 108 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 569 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 $0.00108 $0.00569
Opus 5 $0.00054 $0.00284
Sonnet 5 $0.00022 $0.00114
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00057

Measured yesterday against content hash 9dcab96af295, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

touch_file 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 yesterday.

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/touch_file/skills/touch_file/SKILL.md · 46 lines

What it actually says

touch_file

When a Write or Edit tool call fails while trying to create a new file, recover by using touch via the Bash tool to create the empty file first, then retry the Write.

Why this matters

The Write tool can fail when creating new files — often because parent directories don't exist, or the filesystem needs the file to be created differently. Rather than giving up or trying workarounds, a quick mkdir -p + touch reliably sets up the file path so the Write tool succeeds on retry.

Recovery steps

When Write or Edit fails on a new file (not an existing one):

  1. Create parent directories — run mkdir -p <parent-directory> via Bash to ensure the full directory path exists.
  2. Create the empty file — run touch <filepath> via Bash.
  3. Retry the Write — use the Write tool again with the same content. It should succeed now.

You can combine steps 1 and 2:

mkdir -p src/utils && touch src/utils/helpers.ts

When this applies

  • A Write tool call fails and the target file does not already exist
  • The error mentions missing directories, file not found, or path issues
  • You're trying to create a file in a nested directory structure

If mkdir -p fails because a broken symlink occupies a path component (error like No such file or directory even though mkdir -p should create it), the symlink is pointing to a nonexistent target and blocking directory creation. Do not remove it automatically — the symlink may be there intentionally. Instead, tell the user what you found and ask how they'd like to proceed (e.g., remove the symlink, fix its target, or choose a different path).

When this does NOT apply

  • Edit or Write fails on a file that already exists — that's a different problem
  • The error is unrelated to file creation (e.g., permission denied on an existing file, disk full)
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. yesterday First seen · 46 lines · 108 tokens per session scan A 9dcab96af295

Subscribe to this mod's changes

touch_file is a skill published in the GitHub repository trtmn/agent-plugins (2 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed Unlicense. It adds 108 tokens to every session and 569 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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