oracle

A guide for using the oracle command-line tool, which sends a prompt together with selected project files to another AI model for advice based on repository context.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to ask for code reviews, debugging help, or design advice that depends on a focused set of repository files.
Why use it?
It helps you choose the right files, estimate the request size, select an engine, and reconnect to a long-running request without starting over.

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/understudy-ai/understudy/oracle
Any agent
npx skills add understudy-ai/understudy --skill oracle
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/understudy-ai/understudy

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 25 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,314 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00025 $0.01314
Opus 5 $0.00013 $0.00657
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00263
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00131

Measured yesterday against content hash b46ea16a9d37, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

oracle 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to oracle — 2 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/oracle/SKILL.md · 126 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 126 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

oracle — best use

Oracle bundles your prompt + selected files into one “one-shot” request so another model can answer with real repo context (API or browser automation). Treat output as advisory: verify against code + tests.

Main use case (browser, GPT‑5.2 Pro)

Default workflow here: --engine browser with GPT‑5.2 Pro in ChatGPT. This is the common “long think” path: ~10 minutes to ~1 hour is normal; expect a stored session you can reattach to.

Recommended defaults:

  • Engine: browser (--engine browser)
  • Model: GPT‑5.2 Pro (--model gpt-5.2-pro or --model "5.2 Pro")

Golden path

  1. Pick a tight file set (fewest files that still contain the truth).
  2. Preview payload + token spend (--dry-run + --files-report).
  3. Use browser mode for the usual GPT‑5.2 Pro workflow; use API only when you explicitly want it.
  4. If the run detaches/timeouts: reattach to the stored session (don’t re-run).

Commands (preferred)

  • Help:

    • oracle --help
    • If the binary isn’t installed: npx -y @steipete/oracle --help (avoid pnpx here; sqlite bindings).
  • Preview (no tokens):

    • oracle --dry-run summary -p "<task>" --file "src/**" --file "!**/*.test.*"
    • oracle --dry-run full -p "<task>" --file "src/**"
  • Token sanity:

    • oracle --dry-run summary --files-report -p "<task>" --file "src/**"
  • Browser run (main path; long-running is normal):

    • oracle --engine browser --model gpt-5.2-pro -p "<task>" --file "src/**"
  • Manual paste fallback:

    • oracle --render --copy -p "<task>" --file "src/**"
    • Note: --copy is a hidden alias for --copy-markdown.

Attaching files (--file)

--file accepts files, directories, and globs. You can pass it multiple times; entries can be comma-separated.

  • Include:

    • --file "src/**"
    • --file src/index.ts
    • --file docs --file README.md
  • Exclude:

    • --file "src/**" --file "!src/**/*.test.ts" --file "!**/*.snap"
  • Defaults (implementation behavior):

    • Default-ignored dirs: node_modules, dist, coverage, .git, .turbo, .next, build, tmp (skipped unless explicitly passed as literal dirs/files).
    • Honors .gitignore when expanding globs.
    • Does not follow symlinks.
    • Dotfiles filtered unless opted in via pattern (e.g. --file ".github/**").
    • Files > 1 MB rejected.

Read the full file on GitHub · 126 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. yesterday First seen · 126 lines · 25 tokens per session scan A b46ea16a9d37

Subscribe to this mod's changes

oracle is a skill published in the GitHub repository understudy-ai/understudy (456 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 25 tokens to every session and 1,314 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to oracle, differing in 2 lines, and is treated as a copy.