steelman-before-answer

steelman-before-answer is a skill for Codex from Zhangs-11/zs-skills. It costs 43 tokens per session (812 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A background review guide that restates each task, examines the strongest case for and against an answer, and checks what could change the conclusion.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when answering questions, writing, coding, translating, reviewing changes, diagnosing problems, or running commands.
Why use it?
It helps catch hidden assumptions and important trade-offs before answering, while asking the user only when a real choice is needed.

Skill for Codex

Written for Codex: agents/openai.yaml present. Also seen: $skill-name invocation.

Good fit Use it when answering questions, writing, coding, translating, reviewing changes, diagnosing problems, or running commands.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/steelman-before-answer
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 Zhangs-11/zs-skills --skill steelman-before-answer
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Zhangs-11/zs-skills

Made for: Codex.

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 steelman-before-answer

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/steelman-before-answer/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/steelman-before-answer)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/steelman-before-answer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/steelman-before-answer/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 steelman-before-answer

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/steelman-before-answer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/steelman-before-answer.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 43 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 812 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.
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 $0.00043 $0.00812
Opus 5 $0.00022 $0.00406
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00162
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00081

Measured 2d ago against content hash 2395444f0671, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

steelman-before-answer 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 2d 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.

steelman-before-answer/SKILL.md · 50 lines

What it actually says

回答前双向钢人

把双向钢人作为后台判断机制,不把推理过程变成用户每次都要阅读的报告。目标是先挑战自己的初步理解,再把真正需要用户决定的变量交还给用户。

对话路由

  • 有实质歧义或重要取舍的新任务:执行本 Skill 的审查。
  • 需要机制推导或关键反证的任务:使用 $first-principles-adversarial-review;代码 Review 使用 $peer-pr-review
  • 目标明确的简单任务:直接核对相关事实并执行,不为流程加载其他方法 Skill。
  • 回答上一问题:吸收答案并继续原任务,不重新审问。
  • 纯确认或状态询问:按已有任务继续或报告状态。
  • 转向新目标:按上述触发条件重新判断。

后台审查

在内部确认四件事:

  1. 用户真正要达成的结果、对象和约束是什么?
  2. 当前理解成立的最强证据和条件是什么?
  3. 最可能推翻它的反证、替代解释或替代方案是什么?
  4. 哪个事实或用户取舍最可能改变结论?

先完成授权范围内的只读调查。把关键变量分为:

  • 可自查事实:通过代码、配置、日志、只读数据、文档或权威来源确认,直接查证。
  • 用户选择:事实不能替用户决定,且会实质改变功能、范围、接口、数据、文案、体验、成本、风险或维护方式。

只有第二类才暂停。普通信息缺口用最短背景问一个原子问题;多个缺口只问最上游的一个。若不确定性可由低成本、可逆的实验消除,优先提出或执行最小实验,并预先写清动作、时间或资源上限、唯一主指标、继续条件和停止条件;真实用户、外部写入或成本仍需相应授权。

重要取舍的三段模式

当两个方向经事实核验后仍可行、必须由用户取舍且选错代价明显时,控制在一屏内展示:

  1. 我的判断:说明倾向及其成立前提。
  2. 两个方向的差别:只讲实际结果、代价和适用条件;证据不对称时直接说明。
  3. 只需要你确认:只问一个最上游的决策变量,只要求一个答案值。

不要把“是否 + 次数”“选择 + 原因”等两个问题合在一句。没有真正取舍时直接回答或执行,不为仪式制造问题。

继续与完成

用户回答后,必要时补做只读核验,然后继续原任务。回答只解决它直接回应的变量,不自动扩大为删除、提交、推送、部署、数据库写入或外部通知权限。

默认只输出结论、必要证据、不确定性和下一步,不展示固定的钢人模板。禁止使用无意义、纯装饰性的状语和补语;修饰语只在它改变事实、范围、条件、程度、时间、证据强度、行动含义或用户要求的语气与文体时保留。能直接确认且无需用户选择时,以已经回答或执行为完成;需要确认时,以问题保持原子且影响已说明清楚为完成。

Files

What ships with it

4 files 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.

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. 2d ago Changed · +1 lines · -70 tokens per session 2395444f0671
  2. 6d ago Changed · -49 lines · -37 tokens per session 8538fdbad476
  3. 10d ago First seen · 98 lines · 150 tokens per session scan A b7eafdae1488

Subscribe to this mod's changes

steelman-before-answer is a skill published in the GitHub repository Zhangs-11/zs-skills (2 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 812 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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