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.
npx skills add yaxeen/storytelling-skills --skill titles-and-thumbnailsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/yaxeen/storytelling-skillsWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/yaxeen/storytelling-skills/titles-and-thumbnails)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/yaxeen/storytelling-skills/titles-and-thumbnails"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/yaxeen/storytelling-skills/titles-and-thumbnails/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/yaxeen/storytelling-skills/titles-and-thumbnails"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/yaxeen/storytelling-skills/titles-and-thumbnails.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00043 | $0.01466 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00022 | $0.00733 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00009 | $0.00293 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00147 |
Grade A, and why
titles-and-thumbnails 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 12d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 104 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Titles & Thumbnails
- The click is one decision made in under a second — title and thumbnail are designed together as a pair, never in isolation.
- They must complement, not repeat: the thumbnail shows the emotion/stakes, the title names the gap (or vice versa). If both say the same thing, you waste half the real estate.
- The pack's job is the right click, not the most clicks. A title that pulls the wrong viewers spikes CTR and kills retention — which suppresses the video. Keep a qualifying signal (audience, situation, stakes) in the pair.
- Built on the six levers — see storytelling-hooks. Recap: 1. Curiosity gap · 2. Emotional mirror · 3. Conflict engine · 4. Relatability · 5. Pattern + surprise · 6. Three-act.
When to Use
- Writing a video title or a batch of title variations.
- Designing or briefing a thumbnail concept.
- Diagnosing low click-through rate (CTR) on existing uploads.
- Any niche: tutorials, vlogs, business, finance, faith, entertainment.
The Pairing Principle (Quick Reference)
| Thumbnail does | Title does |
|---|---|
| Emotion + stakes (visual) | The curiosity gap (words) |
| One focal subject | The specific promise/number |
| Shows the "what" | Asks/implies the "why/how" |
- Test: cover the title — does the thumbnail still raise a question? Cover the thumbnail — does the title still pull? Both should pass.
Title Formulas
- Curiosity gap: "The one [thing] nobody tells you about [topic]."
- Stakes/loss: "This [mistake] is costing you [outcome]."
- Result-first: "How I [result] in [timeframe] (without [expected cost])."
- Pattern break: "Everyone does [common thing]. Here's why it's wrong."
- Specific number: "[N] [things] that [outcome]." Concrete numbers beat vague ("7 settings" > "some settings").
- Question gap: "Why does [surprising thing] happen?"
- Rules:
- Front-load the hook word — mobile shows roughly the first 40 characters; keep the full title ≤ ~60.
- One idea per title; don't stack two gaps.
- Promise something the video actually delivers (broken promises tank retention and the algorithm).
- Write 5–10 variants — cover at least 4 different formulas above, don't write 8 versions of one.
- Pick by sharpest gap + best fit for the target viewer — not raw breadth. Relatability serves the audience you want, not everyone.
What ships with it
1 file 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.
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.
- 12d ago First seen · 104 lines · 43 tokens per session scan A f7257e4af55e
titles-and-thumbnails is a skill published in the GitHub repository yaxeen/storytelling-skills (9 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 1,466 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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