synthesis-anti-shortcuts SKILL.md skillA
synthesis-anti-shortcuts from synthesisengineering/synthesis-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add synthesisengineering/synthesis-skills/synthesis-anti-shortcuts@v2.2.0Pins v2.2.0 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- synthesisengineering/synthesis-skills
- Path
skills/synthesis-anti-shortcuts/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 11
- Latest version
- v2.2.0, committed Nov 2, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jul 29, 2026
- Size
- 7,335 bytes
- Repository stars
- 23
- License
- Apache-2.0
Catch the lazy-shortcut antipattern: costume vocabulary that hides deferral, dismissal or false consultation. Constraint-first protocol, sub-agent dispatch and acceptance hygiene, pre-response self-check. Use to avoid shortcuts, audit for laziness, check for deferral or enforce the best solution.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Synthesis Anti-Shortcuts
Catches the draft that looks like good engineering but quietly substitutes a lower-effort path after the user asked for the best solution, hidden under reasonable-sounding vocabulary ("for now," "minimal diff," "backward compatible," "out of scope"). This skill names those costumes and gives the protocol to strip them out.
## Binding rules
Rules 1 to 8 carry the methodology section numbers other documents cite (for example "§4–5"). New rules are appended.
1. **Constraint-first.** Write the user's goals and non-goals (conversation, project context, workspace and global instructions) before generating approaches; a pro that violates one cannot appear.
2. **Decide what constraints decide.** Ask only when an unresolved choice belongs to the user. "Recommendation: X. Your call?" on a determined or delegated choice is the costume; execute and report.
3. **Scan for costume vocabulary** in drafts and sub-agent reports. A phrase is legitimate only when the user asked to optimize for what it implies.
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add synthesisengineering/synthesis-skills/synthesis-anti-shortcuts@sha256:436bf7d0781243beThe line at the top of this page pins the label v2.2.0, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_bcxwrobcmxgwj5bt)
2 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 11 versions of this file, between Jul 29, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, about one every 10 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v2.2.0 latest | 2026-11-02 | 7485e18 | 7,335 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.1.0 | 2026-10-30 | 2633d18 | 7,335 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.0.1 | 2026-10-06 | 22a5e58 | 7,335 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.0.0 | 2026-10-06 | 4554f32 | 7,210 B | A | view · diff |
| v2.0.0 | 2026-10-06 | 6aa3c4e | 6,590 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.2.1 | 2026-10-01 | 495ce4f | 18,676 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.2.0 | 2026-09-25 | 05b0737 | 17,928 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.1.1 | 2026-08-20 | e2fb922 | 16,774 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.1.1 | 2026-08-18 | 9233e81 | 14,740 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.1.0 | 2026-08-18 | 65b4b81 | 14,235 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.0 | 2026-07-29 | 9b134e7 | 13,450 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (7335 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
synthesisengineering/synthesis-skills · 23 stars · license Apache-2.0 · pushed 2026-11-05 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_bcxwrobcmxgwj5bt GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=synthesisengineering/synthesis-skills/synthesis-anti-shortcuts GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/436bf7d0781243be44f21e50e9c27d4bd3b9751cc7fbf07d0464ad74cc61a611
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.