search-before-build-compare

search-before-build-compare is a skill for Claude Code from user-w-ui/search-before-build. It costs 100 tokens per session (1,113 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A research workflow for comparing an existing plan, prototype, repository, or partly built product with current alternatives. It separates what already exists from the underlying need the project is meant to serve.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to inspect the current project, compare alternatives, identify reusable work, and decide whether to align the real need before researching further.
Why use it?
It helps avoid rebuilding work that already exists and clarifies whether to build, adapt, use an existing option, or stop.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the search-before-build plugin — 3 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to inspect the current project, compare alternatives, identify reusable work, and decide whether to align the real need before researching further.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/user-w-ui/search-before-build/search-before-build-compare
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 user-w-ui/search-before-build --skill search-before-build-compare
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/user-w-ui/search-before-build

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install search-before-build, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 3 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 search-before-build-compare

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/user-w-ui/search-before-build/search-before-build-compare/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/user-w-ui/search-before-build/search-before-build-compare)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/user-w-ui/search-before-build/search-before-build-compare"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/user-w-ui/search-before-build/search-before-build-compare/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 search-before-build-compare

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/user-w-ui/search-before-build/search-before-build-compare"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/user-w-ui/search-before-build/search-before-build-compare.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" 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 1,113 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 warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Anti-Refusal · line 17
    Skill instructs the agent to omit warnings, disclaimers, or ethical commentary. Stripping safety caveats hides risk from the user and is a common jailbreak preamble.
    Fix: Remove instructions that suppress warnings, disclaimers, or ethical commentary. Let the agent surface safety-relevant caveats to the user.
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 $0.00100 $0.01113
Opus 5 $0.00050 $0.00557
Sonnet 5 $0.00020 $0.00223
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00111

Measured 11d ago against content hash 3f89e1a3cedb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

search-before-build-compare 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 11d 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/search-before-build-compare/SKILL.md · 39 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 39 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Compare an Existing Project

Research alternatives to an existing plan or implementation without changing product code.

Rules

  • Read the user's explicit request, supplied files, and the current repository before asking questions.
  • Prefer codebase knowledge-graph tools for code discovery when available; fall back to read-only file inspection when needed.
  • Describe the project from current evidence, not aspirations. Distinguish implemented, planned, and unknown capabilities.
  • Speak plainly. Use professional names for technologies, but avoid product-management jargon.
  • Separate two things: what is already built or written (read it from the supplied material; never re-ask it) and the real need the project is meant to serve (often vague in an early plan). Both shape the search.
  • After establishing the baseline, let the user decide whether to align the real need before searching; do not judge this yourself from how vague or complete the material looks. Offer one clear choice—align first, or compare directly—and briefly say what alignment covers.
  • If the user chooses to align, clarify only the real need behind the project: ask one focused question per turn, at most five information-seeking questions total, and only about gaps that would change the candidate set or comparison. Do not re-ask what the material already supplies. Clarify only to the depth that makes retrieval accurate; do not redesign or complete the plan. If the user declines, build the fingerprint from the baseline and search directly.
  • Do not use project names, README claims, Stars, or popularity as proof of functional similarity.
  • Do not modify source code, plans, or unrelated documentation.

When the user chooses to align the real need, read and follow the intent-model, How to ask, and Pre-research confirmation sections of references/conversation-and-decision.md from this package to clarify just enough for accurate retrieval. Read the Recommendation meanings section of the same reference before making the final decision.

Read the full file on GitHub · 39 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. 11d ago First seen · 39 lines · 100 tokens per session scan A 3f89e1a3cedb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

search-before-build-compare is a skill published in the GitHub repository user-w-ui/search-before-build (122 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 100 tokens to every session and 1,113 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 2026-08-30.

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