Consistency Agent Skill

Apply the principle of Consistency — making similar things look and behave similarly so users can transfer learning across the interface.

Context cost
5.3k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
2 files · 21.2 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
Apache-2.0the author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Apply the principle of Consistency — making similar things look and behave similarly so users can transfer learning across the interface. Use when designing component libraries, defining naming conventions, choosing whether to invent or borrow patterns, auditing across surfaces (web, mobile, email, support docs), or evaluating whether two features should share or diverge in their interaction model. Strong consistency reduces cognitive load and learnability cost; aggressive consistency can flatten meaningful differences.

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

design
Filed under

Design & Media

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md12.9 kB · preview
--- name: consistency ---
6# Consistency
7
8> **Definition.** Consistency is the principle that similar things should look and behave similarly, and that different things should look and behave differently. When two parts of a system serve the same function, they should be expressed the same way, so the user's learning about one transfers immediately to the other. When two parts serve different functions, they should be visually and behaviorally distinct, so the user is not misled into expecting the same behavior.
9
10The principle sounds simple and is, in practice, one of the hardest to apply well. The hard part is judging *what counts as similar*. Two buttons that share a visual style but trigger different kinds of actions are misleadingly consistent — they tell the user "we work the same way" when they don't. Two equivalents in the system that are styled differently for no good reason are inconsistent — they force the user to learn the same lesson twice. The skill is calibration: enough consistency to support transfer, enough variation to honor genuine differences.
11
12The classic taxonomy, due to Lidwell, Holden, and Butler, distinguishes four kinds of consistency.
13
14**Aesthetic consistency.** Visual style, typography, color, spacing, iconography. The interface looks like it belongs to one product, drawn from one design system. Aesthetic consistency builds brand recognition and signals craft. Its absence — components that obviously came from different libraries, typography that varies arbitrarily — signals that the team didn't coordinate.
15
16**Functional consistency.** Equivalent operations work the same way. The "save" gesture saves in every screen; the "delete" affordance deletes in every list; the "back" gesture goes back everywhere. Functional consistency lets users learn an interaction once and apply it throughout the product. Its absence creates "exception fatigue" — the user can't predict what any control will do without reading.
17
18**Internal consistency.** Within the product, similar things are similar. This combines aesthetic and functional consistency at the level of "we have one design system and we apply it." Internal consistency is what users notice as "this product feels coherent."
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20**External consistency.** Across products and platforms, similar things follow shared conventions. The hamburger menu means menu in your app because it means menu in every app. The pinch gesture zooms because it zooms everywhere. External consistency is the user's transferred learning across products being honored. Its absence — your product reinventing standard patterns — creates avoidable friction.
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22## Why this matters
23
24Every consistency violation costs the user a re-learning. When they navigate from one screen to another and discover the "Done" button is now in the top-right instead of the bottom, they spend a moment relocating it; over thousands of interactions, those moments compound. When they learn that swipe-left dismisses in your inbox but swipe-left archives in your other lists, they have to remember which surface they're on before acting. When they form an expectation from external conventions ("X means Y here, like everywhere else") and you violate it, they're surprised, and surprise in interaction is almost always a cost.
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md1,935 words
Files2
LicenceApache-2.0
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈170
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
5,130
on trigger
The instruction body and 1 supporting file, read only when the skill fires.
2.6%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 27% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

5.3k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

2 files, 21.2 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md12.9 kB
  • references/lineage.md8.3 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 2 files you can review in full before installing. The Apache-2.0 licence covers the templates and examples as well as the instructions.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Consistency · 5.3k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/consistency/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/consistency" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/consistency ] || { mv .claude/skills/consistency "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/consistency" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/consistency"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add hashgraph-online/consistency

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/consistency/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/consistency/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/consistency" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/consistency ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/consistency "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/consistency" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/consistency" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/consistency/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Versionnot versioned
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencehashgraph-online/consistency

Versions

Its author publishes no version number, so there is nothing here to pin to: what you install is the folder as it stands today. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

Pinning

Nothing to pin to: this skill carries no version number of its own. What you install is what the folder holds on the day you install it.

Reviews

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Publisher
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