akc-cycleCAUTION
Keeps the rules and skills in a Claude Code setup from piling up and going stale: a Claude Code plugin of audit and upkeep skills plus an optional always-loaded rules file, the installable form of the Agent Knowledge Cycle (AKC).
Overview
From the repository's own README, as read at the audited commit. Badges and raw HTML are left out.
akc-cycle keeps the rules and skills in a Claude Code setup from piling up and going stale. Ask Claude to "audit my skills" and it reviews each one, proposes a verdict such as keep, merge or retire with a reason, and changes nothing until you confirm.
That audit is one of six habits the agent learns: search before building, keep what a session taught, audit what has accumulated, turn advice that keeps coming back into a rule, check that a rule changed behaviour, and keep docs to one home per fact. The agent is also told to delete its own rules once a habit runs without them. akc-cycle is the installable form of the Agent Knowledge Cycle (AKC), the author's method for keeping an AI agent aligned with its operator over time. The author's other work is listed under More from the author.
Listed in the Claude plugin directory (as of 2026-10-08, v1.5.0).
Install
There are two parts, and each works without the other. The rules file is one Markdown file of about 5 KB (as of v1.5.0) that Claude Code reads at the start of every session, so the agent applies the habits without being asked. The plugin adds a skill for each step, with the procedure written out; if you only want the audits, the plugin alone is enough. Claude Code plugins have no slot for a rules file that loads every session (as of 2026-10-08), so the rules file is installed separately.
Rules file
mkdir -p ~/.claude/rules curl -fsSL -o ~/.claude/rules/akc-cycle.md \ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/shimo4228/akc-cycle/main/rules/common/akc-cycle.md
Claude Code loads every Markdown file under ~/.claude/rules/ in every project. In another agent harness, save the file wherever that harness reads its rules. Read the file before you install it; to remove it, delete it.
Plugin
/plugin marketplace add shimo4228/akc-cycle /plugin install akc-cycle@akc-cy
b69c3b0bb043OBSERVED · 2026-10-10Install
Commands as the repository documents them. They are shown, not run.
git clone https://github.com/shimo4228/skill-stocktake
git clone https://github.com/shimo4228/skill-health
uv run --frozen --project "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}" \uv run --frozen --directory "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../skill-health" python -m scripts.scan_refs ~/.claude/skills --jsonuv run --frozen --project "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}" \uv run --frozen --project "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}" python -m scripts.run ~/.claude/rules/common/testing.mdHost compatibility
What the documentation claims. We have not run a compatibility test.
| Host | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| claude-code | mentioned | |
| codex | mentioned | |
| copilot | mentioned |
What it tells the agent
The instruction file, verbatim from the audited commit — this is the text the model reads, and the surface the audit's instruction layer examines. Quoted here so you can judge it without cloning anything.
--- name: adr-writer description: "Record a design decision as an ADR in the repo's docs/adr/, or decide whether it clears the filing bar or belongs in a note or the commit body. Use when recording a decision (ADR にして), or when context-sync finds a buried decision." user-invocable: true origin: shimo4228 --- # ADR Writer Capture a design decision as a numbered ADR with consistent structure. The skill handles the boilerplate (directory detection, sequence numbering, index update) in scripted steps, and the main loop writes the prose. ## Why the main loop writes Deterministic concerns — where the ADR goes, what number it gets, which index needs updating — are easy to get wrong silently (number collisions, sub-directory cwd confusion, index drift), so they live in scripted steps. The prose is written by the main loop that holds the decision: rendering to the house template is cheap for it, and the decision packet (Step 3) is the discipline that keeps *decide* and *render* apart — the packet is settled first, the file is a faithful expression of it, nothing is inferred while writing. A writer renders a decision; it does not make one. The evidence script (Step 4.5) is the fidelity check. ## When to Use (filing conditions — canonical) Write a new ADR only when the decision meets **all three**: - **hard to reverse** — undoing it means changing other artifacts (skills, rules, hooks, scripts) or public outputs too. Being revertible with git alone does not count as easy: nearly every harness change is git-revertible - **surprising without context** — a future reader would ask "why is it like this?" - **the result of a real trade-off** — chosen between genuine alternatives "Hard to reverse" is met by most harness changes, so it mainly excludes changes whose effects stay local; "surprising" and "real trade-off" do the filtering. Superseding or weakening a prior ADR does not by itself call for a new ADR. When the decision that changes it meets all three, write the new ADR (and flip the old Status or add a dated Note — Edge cases). When it does not, add a dated Note under the affected section of the old ADR — `> **注記(YYYY-MM-DD, commit「<subject>」)**: <what changed and what still stands>` — and record the decision in the same commit's body (below). The old ADR then never reads as current when it is not. Entry points: the user says "let's ADR this" / "record this decision", `context-sync` Phase 3 surfaced a buried decision, a debate concluded and the outcome must outlive the session. Apply the three conditions to the request; when they do not all hold, say so and use the commit body (plus the Note when a prior ADR is affected). ## When NOT to Use — the commit body carries it Everything else is recorded in the commit body, in three lines, so `git log --grep` finds it later: ``` Context: <what was observed, with its source> Decision: <what changed, as a commitment> Review-when: <the observation that would void it, or "none — record"> ``` This covers bug fixes, reversible refactors, wording changes to rules / skills that nothing else cites, stocktake outcomes (retire / keep verdicts — the stocktake's own results file plus the commit), and personal preferences. When a commit-body decision later gets superseded or cited by another artifact, promote it: write the ADR then, quoting the commit. ## Workflow ### Step 1: Resolve the ADR directory ```bash REPO_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null) || REPO_ROOT="$(pwd)" ADR_DIR="$REPO_ROOT/docs/adr" ``` If `$ADR_DIR` does not exist, create it — the ADR request itself covers the directory, and git makes it reversible. Mention the creation in your final report. Write a minimal `README.md` index alongside: ````markdown # Architecture Decision Records ## Index | ADR | Title | Status | Date | |-----|-------|--------|------| ## Template ADRs in this repository use the 7-section template (`scripts/adr_lint.py` checks section presence mechanically): ```markdown # ADR-NNNN: [Title] ## Status proposed | accepted | superseded | deprecated ## Date YYYY-MM-DD ## Context [what was the problem] ## Decision [what was decided] ## Review-when [expiry conditions — an ADR is a dated hypothesis, not a permanent constraint] ## Alternatives Considered [rejected options and why] ## Consequences [what becomes easier / harder] ``` File name: `NNNN-kebab-case-title.md` (zero-padded 4-digit sequence). Index rows link the number: `| [NNNN](NNNN-slug.md) | Title | status | YYYY-MM-DD |`. ```` (Index rows make the number a relative link — the same form as existing indexes such as harness / CA. `adr_lint.py` reads the expected section set from this README's Template fenced block, so placing the README doubles as the lint's template declaration.) ### Step 2: Pick the next sequence number ```bash LAST_NUM=$(ls "$ADR_DIR"/[0-9]*-*.md 2>/dev/null | sort -V | tail -1 | sed -E 's|.*/([0-9]+)-.*|\1|') if [ -z "$LAST_NUM" ]; then NEXT_NUM="0001" else NEXT_NUM=$(printf "%04d" $((10#$LAST_NUM + 1))) fi ``` Verify uniqueness right before writing (race safety): ```bash [ -e "$ADR_DIR/$NEXT_NUM-"*.md ] && echo "COLLISION" || echo "OK" ``` If `COLLISION`, recompute `NEXT_NUM` from the latest state. ### Step 3: Gather the 7 inputs Ask the user (or accept from caller) for: 1. **Title** — short, kebab-case-friendly (e.g., `context-sync-cascade-and-writer-agents`). The skill will compose the filename. 2. **Status** — `proposed | accepted | superseded | deprecated`. Default `accepted`. 3. **Context** — what problem prompted this decision (raw text OK). 4. **Decision** — what was decided (raw text OK). 5. **Review-when** — the expiry conditions: which observation or premise failure would void or weaken this decision, 1-3 lines. It can only be captured at write time; an ADR without it reads as permanent. If there genuinely is none, say so explicitly and write "none — a record, not a permanent decision". 6. **Alternatives** — what else was considered and w
Trust audit
CAUTIONgrade B · trust 88/100 Install with care. The audit found things worth knowing before you trust its output.
| Layer | What it checks | Result |
|---|---|---|
| L0 | Provenance & inventory | PASS |
| L1 | Static analysis of the code | PASS |
| L2 | Instruction surface (what it tells the agent) | FAIL |
| L3 | Class-specific surface | PASS |
| L4 | Behavioural (sandbox) | SKIPPED |
What the source does
- Filesystem
- declared (1 observation(s))
- Network
- declared (5 observation(s))
- Shell
- none-observed
- Dependencies
- pinned
- Secrets in source
- none-found
Findings (11)
`permissions: contents: read` / `persist-credentials: false` / a secret scan job over the whole history
refused = _apply_files(tmp_path, [("a/../../escaped.txt", "x"), ("/tmp/absolute.txt", "x")])skipped = _apply_setup_commands(tmp_path, ("mkdir -p ../../escaped",))("mkdir -p missing/../../OUTSIDE/pwned-dir", "touch other/../../OUTSIDE/pwned-file"),written = place_skill(tmp_path, ("evil/../../escape", "x"))"http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/",
"http://127.0.0.1:9/admin",
"http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/",
"https://0.0.0.0/",
assert ul._NoRedirect().redirect_request(None, None, 302, "", {}, "http://127.0.0.1/") is Noneassert ul.is_internal_host("https://93.184.216.34/x") is FalseGates applied: no_behavioural_pass.
b69c3b0bb043full audit observations/trust-audit/skill/shimo4228__akc-cycle.json · Report an issue / request a re-scanAudit history
Every audit this skill has had.
| Date | Source | Verdict | Grade | Score | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-10 | b69c3b0bb043 | CAUTION | B | 88 | first audit |
Questions
What does the akc-cycle skill do?
Keeps the rules and skills in a Claude Code setup from piling up and going stale: a Claude Code plugin of audit and upkeep skills plus an optional always-loaded rules file, the installable form of the Agent Knowledge Cycle (AKC).
Is akc-cycle safe to install?
With care. The audit graded it B (88/100) and found 11 things worth knowing before you trust this skill, listed below with the exact line each was found on.
What can akc-cycle access on my machine?
The audit observed that it reaches the network and reads or writes files. Each of those is consistent with what it says it does. Secrets in the source: none found.
Which assistants does akc-cycle work with?
Its documentation mentions claude-code, codex and copilot. That is what the text claims, not a compatibility test we ran.
How current is this page?
The grade is for one exact copy of the source (b69c3b0bb043), read on 2026-10-10. The repository is watched, and a new audit runs when it changes — this is the first audit.