Necessity Audit

What it does

When your agent uses it

• : auditing lifecycle spec (1-requirements / 2-tech-spec / 3-architecture) for YAGNI/KISS violations
• Challenging necessity of FRs/NFRs/abstractions/configs via Codex adversarial debate

Example prompts

• “/necessity-audit”

Requirements

• A credential in AUDIT_TOKEN
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Grep, Glob, Write, Bash(node:*), Bash(mktemp:*), Skill

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit a4d4bc1. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • Read
  • Grep
  • Glob
  • Write
  • Bash(node:*)
  • Bash(mktemp:*)
  • Skill

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • node

  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 these keys or tokens, usually read from environment variables:

  • AUDIT_TOKEN

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

Context cost

Necessity Audit loads about 2.7k tokens when it runs, and up to ~7.3k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 112 tokens; SKILL.md has 908 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~112

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~2.7k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~7.3k

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

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 sd0xdev/sd0x-harness at commit a4d4bc1, republished under its MIT licence (© sd0xdev). 908 words, ~2,658 tokens.

name

necessity-audit

description

Necessity audit for over-designed spec elements. Use when: auditing lifecycle spec (1-requirements / 2-tech-spec / 3-architecture) for YAGNI/KISS violations, challenging necessity of FRs/NFRs/abstractions/configs via Codex adversarial debate. Not for: FP reasoning validity (use /codex-review-spec), completeness check (use /feature-completeness), detail review (use /codex-review-doc), or code-level simplification (use /simplify).

allowed-tools

Read, Grep, Glob, Write, Bash(node:*), Bash(mktemp:*), Skill

Phase 0 preflight → Phase A classify → Phase B Codex debate → Phase C consolidate → Redact → Emit

mktemp -d
# → e.g. /var/folders/ab/cd1234/T/tmp.XyZ123 — reuse this literal path below as <AUDIT_TMP_DIR>

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/cleanup.js --claim "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>"
# → token=3f9c…  (48 hex chars) — reuse this literal token in Phase 4 as <AUDIT_TOKEN>

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/preflight.js \
  --path <path> --depth <depth> \
  [--skip-preflight] [--include-feasibility] \
  --output "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/preflight.json"

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/debate-topic.js build \
  --preflight "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/preflight.json" \
  --output "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/topic.txt"

Skill("codex-brainstorm", <contents of <AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/topic.txt>)

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/debate-topic.js parse \
  --input "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/debate.txt" \
  --output "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/debate.json"

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/consolidate.js \
  --phase-a "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/phase-a.json" \
  --debate "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/debate.json" \
  --preflight "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/preflight.json" \
  --overrides "<id>:<rationale>[;...]" \
  --depth <depth> \
  --output "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/report.json"

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/report.js \
  --input "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/report.json" \
  --format markdown \
  --output "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/report.md"

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/redact.js \
  --input "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/report.md" \
  --output "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>/report.final.md"

node scripts/skills/necessity-audit/cleanup.js --dir "<AUDIT_TMP_DIR>" --token "<AUDIT_TOKEN>"

Input: /necessity-audit docs/features/foo/2-tech-spec.md
Action: Phase 0 preflight → Phase A classify → Phase B debate → Phase C consolidate → report + redact → emit with sentinel

Input: /necessity-audit docs/features/foo/2-tech-spec.md --continue 019dab42-xxxx
Action: Resume per `@skills/codex-code-review/references/codex-transport.md` § Resume; re-run Phase C with updated spec; emit diff-focused report

Input: /necessity-audit docs/features/foo/1-requirements.md --depth brief --skip-preflight
Action: Only challenge dims 1-3; skip state advisory; emit [PREFLIGHT SKIPPED] banner

Input: /necessity-audit docs/features/foo/2-tech-spec.md --override FR-12:"needed for Q3 rollout"
Action: FR-12 kept with justification; final gate ✅ Audit Clear if no other Cut items remain

© sd0xdev, 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 7 other files (references) in skills/necessity-audit of sd0xdev/sd0x-harness.

• SKILL.md
• references/dimensions.md
• references/output-template.md
• references/phase-a-classify.md
• references/phase-b-debate-topic.md
• references/phase-c-consolidate.md
• references/redaction-rules.md
• references/review-loop.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit a4d4bc1