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Agent skill

Estimating And Contingency

by cbrock84 in cbrock84/headcount

Produces a cost or effort estimate someone can defend — decomposing the work, choosing between analogous, parametric and bottom-up methods, documenting the basis and its assumptions, expressing…

MITAuto-check passed

Install Estimating And Contingency

skills CLI
$ npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill estimating-and-contingency -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install cbrock84/headcount estimating-and-contingency --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cbrock84/headcount.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/pmo/skills/estimating-and-contingency .claude/skills/estimating-and-contingency && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
estimating-and-contingency
GitHub stars
2k
Token cost
~1.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
731 words
Files
2 (incl. references)
Skills in repo
178
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Produces a cost or effort estimate someone can defend — decomposing the work, choosing between analogous, parametric and bottom-up methods, documenting the basis and its assumptions, expressing…

  • SKILL.md covers Decompose before you estimate, Pick the method that matches…, Write the basis down, because… and Express it as a range, and say…, plus 4 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Estimating And Contingency is an agent skill from cbrock84/headcount. Produces a cost or effort estimate someone can defend — decomposing the work, choosing between analogous, parametric and bottom-up methods, documenting the basis and its assumptions, expressing confidence as a range, and sizing contingency and management reserve separately. Use this to build an estimate, challenge one you have been handed, work out why estimates keep coming in low, or decide how much reserve a portfolio actually needs.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.3k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 2 other files, including reference files (for example `references/sources.md`).

The repository describes itself as: An agent organization structured as a company — 15+ departments, 125+ skills, each independently installable, citing the standards and regulators that settle the question. Runs… The licence is MIT.

Example prompts

  • “Use the estimating-and-contingency skill to produce a cost or effort estimate someone can defend — decomposing the work, choosing between analogous…”
  • “/estimating-and-contingency”

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 98d1c17. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Estimating And Contingency loads about 1.3k tokens when it runs, and up to ~1.6k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 117 tokens; SKILL.md has 731 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~117
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.3k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~1.6k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from cbrock84/headcount at commit 98d1c17, republished under its MIT licence (© cbrock84). 731 words, ~1,255 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/estimating-and-contingency/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 1 other file; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
estimating-and-contingency
description
Produces a cost or effort estimate someone can defend — decomposing the work, choosing between analogous, parametric and bottom-up methods, documenting the basis and its assumptions, expressing confidence as a range, and sizing contingency and management reserve separately. Use this to build an estimate, challenge one you have been handed, work out why estimates keep coming in low, or decide how much reserve a portfolio actually needs.

Estimating and contingency

An estimate is a claim about an uncertain future. Most organizations treat it as a commitment made by whoever said the number, which is why estimates are padded, disbelieved, and padded again.

Decompose before you estimate

Estimate the work, not the project. Break it down until each piece is small enough that someone who would do it can picture doing it — usually a week or two of effort. Below that you are estimating noise; above it you are guessing.

Two decomposition failures are worth naming. Missing scope is the larger one: integration, data migration, environments, testing, documentation, training, and the coordination overhead of everyone involved routinely go unestimated because nobody owns them. Double-counted contingency is the other: padding inside every task, then adding a reserve on top of the padded total.

Pick the method that matches what you know

  • Analogous — scale from a comparable past effort. Fast, needs real history, and the comparison has to survive being stated out loud: what is genuinely similar and what is not.
  • Parametric — a rate applied to a count. Cost per endpoint, per interface, per square foot, per test case. Credible only when the rate comes from your own data and the count is knowable.
  • Bottom-up — estimate each decomposed piece and roll up. Most accurate, most expensive, and worth it once the work is understood well enough for the pieces to be real.

Use two methods and compare them where the number matters. When they disagree by more than a quarter, one of them is built on an assumption nobody has stated.

Write the basis down, because that is the durable part

The number is the least useful output. The basis of estimate is what lets someone re-estimate later instead of starting over: what is included, what is explicitly excluded, the rates and quantities used, the assumptions the number depends on, and who provided each input.

An estimate without a basis cannot be defended, cannot be updated, and cannot be learned from. When the project comes in at double, the basis is what tells you whether the estimate was wrong or the work changed — and those call for opposite responses.

Express it as a range, and say what the range means

A single number is a forecast disguised as a fact. Give a range, and state the confidence: "we would hit this eight times in ten" is a different commitment from "this is the best case."

Ranges narrow as work is understood, not as deadlines approach. Re-estimate at genuine information points — after discovery, after the first integration, after the first delivered increment — and publish the revision rather than quietly holding the old number.

Show full SKILL.md (289 more words)Show less

Separate contingency from management reserve

  • Contingency covers the known unknowns inside the estimate: things that will vary, at a size you can bound. It belongs to the project and is drawn against as risks materialize.
  • Management reserve covers scope nobody has thought of yet. It belongs to whoever governs the portfolio, not to the project team, and it is released deliberately.

Collapsing the two produces the familiar pattern where contingency is spent early on ordinary variance and nothing remains for the thing that actually goes wrong.

Why estimates keep coming in low

Optimism is real but it is rarely the main driver. The larger ones are structural: the estimate was made before scope was understood and never revisited; the estimator knew the number that would be accepted; only the happy path was estimated; or the organization punishes revised estimates more than it punishes overruns, so nobody revises.

Fix the incentive before fixing the arithmetic. An organization that treats a re-estimate as a failure will get accurate estimates from no one.

Sources

references/sources.md in this skill lists the outside authorities that settle the questions here — what each one is authoritative for, and what you may do with it. Check them before answering on anything they cover, and cite what you used. Most are free to read and not free to reproduce; the use note on each is binding.

Never

  • Present a point estimate for work nobody has decomposed.
  • Add contingency to an estimate that already has padding inside every task.
  • Let an estimate stand as a commitment without recording what it assumed.
  • Cut an estimate to fit a budget and leave the scope unchanged. That is not an estimate, it is a decision to overrun, taken early and left unsaid.

© cbrock84, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file (references) in plugins/pmo/skills/estimating-and-contingency of cbrock84/headcount.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/sources.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 98d1c17

Compare with similar skills

Estimating And Contingency next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Estimating And Contingency compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Estimating And Contingency this skillcbrock84/headcount2k—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Task Effort EstimatorDonchitos/Claude-Code-Game-Studios26k—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Cost Optimizeruvnet/ruflo74k—~997Automated safety check: NotesMIT
Cost Trackingaffaan-m/ECC276k1 repos~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Cost Conversationruvnet/ruflo74k—~407Automated safety check: NotesMIT
Cost Reportruvnet/ruflo74k—~830Automated safety check: NotesMIT

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Questions about Estimating And Contingency

What does Estimating And Contingency do?

Produces a cost or effort estimate someone can defend — decomposing the work, choosing between analogous, parametric and bottom-up methods, documenting the basis and its assumptions, expressing…. Estimating And Contingency is an agent skill from cbrock84/headcount. Produces a cost or effort estimate someone can defend — decomposing the work, choosing between analogous, parametric and bottom-up methods, documenting the basis and its assumptions, expressing confidence as a range, and sizing contingency and management reserve separately.

How do I install Estimating And Contingency in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill estimating-and-contingency -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/pmo/skills/estimating-and-contingency in cbrock84/headcount) into .claude/skills/estimating-and-contingency in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Estimating And Contingency in Codex?

Run `npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill estimating-and-contingency -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/pmo/skills/estimating-and-contingency in cbrock84/headcount) into .agents/skills/estimating-and-contingency in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Estimating And Contingency in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add cbrock84/headcount --skill estimating-and-contingency -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/estimating-and-contingency, .gemini/skills/estimating-and-contingency, .github/skills/estimating-and-contingency and .opencode/skills/estimating-and-contingency in your project.

What does Estimating And Contingency need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Estimating And Contingency is instructions for the agent only.

Does Estimating And Contingency access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Estimating And Contingency safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Estimating And Contingency use?

Estimating And Contingency is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Estimating And Contingency use?

About 1.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 373 tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Estimating And Contingency?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Estimating And Contingency: Task Effort Estimator (Donchitos/Claude-Code-Game-Studios, 26k stars), Cost Optimize (ruvnet/ruflo, 74k stars), Cost Tracking (affaan-m/ECC, 276k stars) and Cost Conversation (ruvnet/ruflo, 74k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Estimating And Contingency?

cbrock84 (a GitHub user) maintains it in cbrock84/headcount, which has 2,022 GitHub stars. The repository holds 178 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 17, 2026.

Source: cbrock84/headcount on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.