Poteto mode Agent Skill

poteto's agent style for concise, detailed responses, deliberate subagents, unslopped prose, simple code, and verified work.

Context cost
30.6k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
43 of 44 fileshanded out here; the rest is at its source
Licence
MITthe author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

poteto's agent style for concise, detailed responses, deliberate subagents, unslopped prose, simple code, and verified work. Use for poteto, /poteto-mode, or requests to work in this style.

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.

agentproductivity

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.md18.9 kB · preview
--- name: Poteto Mode disable-model-invocation: true mode: true icon: crown color: yellow reminder: New task? Playbook match or rigor needed -> apply /poteto-mode. Casual turn or user opts out -> don't. ---
11# Poteto mode
12
13## Non-negotiables
14
15**Start every multi-step task with a todolist whose first item is to read the Principles section below in full.** The principles ground every trigger here. In your reply, name each principle that shaped a decision and the specific choice it changed. A citation with no decision behind it means you skipped its leaf skill; it must trace to a real choice the leaf's rule drove.
16
17Remaining triggers:
18
19- Nontrivial change, architecture decision, or "are we sure?" → the **how** skill.
20- About to AskQuestion on a "which approach", "how should I", or "what should this do" fork → classify it before you ask. If the answer is a fact you could observe by running something (behavior, timing, layout, output, perf, even whether an eval separates), it is not the human's to answer. Sketch it via the Prototype playbook (playbooks/prototype.md) and let the result decide. If the task is a read-only Investigation whose deliverable is a cited answer, stay in it and answer from the evidence rather than building a sketch. Reserve the question for a genuine product or preference call no experiment can settle. The ask is the slow path. A throwaway probe usually answers faster, and it hands the human a result to react to instead of a decision to make.
21- Any code → name the data shape first, and choose its organizing structure per **principle-model-the-domain**.
22- Code crossing a function boundary → the **architect** skill, parallel design exploration before implementing.
23- Parallel fan-out → the **swarm** skill for coverage matrices, races, gauntlets, and exploration partitions. Use **arena** for design or code bakeoffs with base selection and grafting.
24- Contested design → the **interrogate** skill (multi-model adversarial) before shipping.
25- Nontrivial multi-step → write the throughput checkpoint (Feature step 3).
26- Any prose surface → the **unslop** skill. Your reply is a prose surface; write it per **Writing the reply**. Agent-facing prose also follows the **create-skill** skill (Cursor's built-in for authoring SKILL.md files).
27- Docs, RFCs, readmes, PR descriptions, or commit messages → the **technical-writing** skill (/technical-writing).
28- Before commit → the deslop skill from the cursor-team-kit plugin (/deslop).
29- Before review → the **no-comments** skill (/no-comments).
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md2,698 words
Files43
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.

≈100
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
30,550
on trigger
The instruction body and 42 supporting files, read only when the skill fires.
15.3%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would not fit in the window together.
050k100k150k200k context window

30.6k 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

The download carries 43 of the 44 files in its source folder; the list here names 43 files, 321.3 kB on disk. Mostly text — the instructions the model reads — with 16 scripts in it that your client would run only if the instructions tell it to. The other one is not in the download, nor is 1 file of a type a skill download does not carry — listed after these, with why.

  • SKILL.md18.9 kB
  • playbooks/authoring-a-skill.md1.0 kB
  • playbooks/autonomous-run.md2.0 kB
  • playbooks/autopilot-full.md5.3 kB
  • playbooks/autopilot-stack.md4.9 kB
  • playbooks/babysit.md8.3 kB
  • playbooks/bug-fix.md2.7 kB
  • playbooks/eval.md3.1 kB
  • playbooks/feature.md3.0 kB
  • playbooks/hillclimb.md4.5 kB
  • playbooks/investigation.md1.1 kB
  • playbooks/multi-phase-plan.md11.2 kB
  • playbooks/opening-a-pr.md3.4 kB
  • playbooks/orchestrate.md17.5 kB
  • playbooks/pause-safely.md1.5 kB
  • playbooks/perf-issue.md3.5 kB
  • playbooks/prototype.md2.5 kB
  • playbooks/refactoring.md4.0 kB
  • playbooks/runtime-forensics.md1.4 kB
  • playbooks/session-pickup.md2.1 kB
  • playbooks/shipping.md4.1 kB
  • playbooks/trace-forensics.md2.1 kB
  • playbooks/visual-parity.md1.3 kB
  • playbooks/worktree-cleanup.md2.9 kB
  • references/bugbot-triage.md9.6 kB
  • scripts/bootstrap.ts1.7 kB
  • scripts/check-plan.mjs7.6 kB
  • scripts/package.json0.4 kB
  • scripts/worktree-audit.sh4.0 kB
  • scripts/orch/orch.test.ts18.4 kB
  • scripts/orch/orch.ts15.5 kB
  • scripts/orch/store.ts42.9 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/cli.test.ts6.2 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/cli.ts7.0 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/fakes.test-helper.ts2.9 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/github.test.ts9.1 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/github.ts24.1 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/policy.test.ts12.4 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/policy.ts25.1 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/render.ts7.1 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/tsconfig.json0.3 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/types.compile.ts2.3 kB
  • scripts/watch-pr/types.ts12.4 kB

Not in the download

Not carried is a type a skill download does not hold. Marked read: its SKILL.md or scripts name the file, so without it the skill works only in part. Take them from its source.

  • scripts/bun.lockread · not carried
  • scripts/watch-pr/watch-prnot carried
What is not in it

A skill installs nothing and depends on nothing: it is a folder your client reads. This one carries 16 scripts beside the text, so the download is 43 files — not the whole of its source: 2 files are left out, and the skill reads one of them. They are listed under the files, with why. 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.

# Poteto mode · 30.6k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/lifeofladi-poteto-mode/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/poteto-mode" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/poteto-mode ] || { mv .claude/skills/poteto-mode "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/poteto-mode" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/poteto-mode"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add lifeofladi/poteto-mode

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/poteto-mode/ 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/lifeofladi-poteto-mode/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/poteto-mode" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/poteto-mode ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/poteto-mode "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/poteto-mode" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/poteto-mode" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/poteto-mode/ 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. It appears as Poteto Mode in Gemini CLI, Codex, Copilot and Grok (its own name); Claude Code lists it by the folder name, poteto-mode. Not in this download: 2 files of its source, 1 of them read by its SKILL.md or scripts (the full list, and why). Take them from its source.

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
Referencelifeofladi/poteto-mode

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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