Books and Records Agent Skill

Guide the design and maintenance of recordkeeping programs under SEC Rules 17a-3, 17a-4, and 204-2.

Context cost
11.2k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
2 files · 44.6 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
MITthe author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Guide the design and maintenance of recordkeeping programs under SEC Rules 17a-3, 17a-4, and 204-2. Use when the user asks about document retention schedules, how long to keep trade records or customer complaints, WORM storage requirements, email or text message archiving, social media capture, BYOD compliance policies, or electronic storage audit trails. Also trigger when users mention 'we got an exam request for records', 'migrating to a new archiving vendor', 'blotter retention', 'order ticket requirements', 'off-channel communications', 'WhatsApp archiving', or ask how long specific…

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.

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.md42.2 kB · preview
--- name: books-and-records ---
6# Books and Records
7
8Regulatory status current as of June 2026 — verify effective dates, dollar thresholds, and pending rulemakings against current SEC/FINRA/FinCEN sources before advising.
9
10## Core Concepts
11
12### SEC Rule 17a-3 (Records to be Made)
13SEC Rule 17a-3 (17 CFR 240.17a-3) specifies the books and records that every registered broker-dealer must create and maintain. These records form the foundation of regulatory oversight, enabling examiners to reconstruct transactions, verify compliance, and protect investors. The principal categories of required records are:
14
15- **Blotters (daily records):** Purchase and sale blotters recording every securities transaction (date, time, security, quantity, price, counterparty), cash receipts and disbursements blotters recording all cash flows, and securities received and delivered blotters tracking the movement of securities into and out of the firm.
16- **General ledger:** A complete general ledger reflecting all assets, liabilities, income, expense, and capital accounts of the broker-dealer. Must be current and maintained in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
17- **Customer account records:** For each customer account, the firm must create and maintain records containing: customer name and tax identification number (SSN or EIN), address, telephone number, date of birth, employment status and name of employer, whether the customer is an associated person of another broker-dealer, investment objectives, annual income and net worth, and the names of persons authorized to transact on the account. The 2003 amendments to Rule 17a-3 (Exchange Act Release No. 34-47910) expanded customer account record requirements to include customer investment profile information — specifically, investment objectives (e.g., capital preservation, income, growth, speculation), investment time horizon, risk tolerance, and other information the firm uses in making recommendations. Firms must also record the date the account was opened and the name of the associated person responsible for the account.
18- **Order tickets:** A memorandum of each order received for the purchase or sale of securities, showing the terms of the order, the time of entry, the time of execution, the price, and the identity of the associated person who accepted and executed the order. For discretionary orders, the ticket must identify that discretion was exercised.
19- **Confirmations:** Copies of all trade confirmations sent to customers and received from counterparties pursuant to SEC Rule 10b-10.
20- **Memoranda of proprietary orders:** Records of each purchase and sale of securities for the firm's proprietary accounts, including the identity of the person who authorized the transaction.
21- **Customer complaints:** A record of each written customer complaint received by the firm, including the complainant's name, the date the complaint was received, the subject matter, and the firm's response or disposition. FINRA Rule 4513 supplements this requirement with specific complaint recordkeeping standards.
22- **Associated person employment applications:** Records related to associated persons including Form U4 (Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration), employment history, disciplinary history, and background investigation results. These records must include the associated person's name, date of birth, address, and the starting date of employment or association with the firm.
23
24### SEC Rule 17a-4 (Records to be Preserved)
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md5,859 words
Files2
LicenceMIT
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.
10,980
on trigger
The instruction body and 1 supporting file, read only when the skill fires.
5.6%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 56% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

11.2k 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, 44.6 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md42.2 kB
  • references/retention-schedule.md2.4 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 MIT 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.

# Books and Records · 11.2k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/books-and-records/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/books-and-records" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/books-and-records ] || { mv .claude/skills/books-and-records "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/books-and-records" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/books-and-records"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add joellewis/books-and-records

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/books-and-records/ 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/books-and-records/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/books-and-records" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/books-and-records ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/books-and-records "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/books-and-records" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/books-and-records" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/books-and-records/ 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
Referencejoellewis/books-and-records

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

—no reviews yet

Nobody has reviewed this skill yet. The rating is the mean of the reviews written here, so there is none until somebody writes the first.

Sign in to review it

A review is tied to an account so it can be answered, edited and taken down by the person who wrote it.

Sign in
Who can post

Anybody with an account, one review each. It carries the version that was current when you wrote it, and the publisher may reply once.

Publisher
Servers0
Claim this skill