principle-read-state-artifacts SKILL.md skillA
principle-read-state-artifacts from edbertchan/catstack is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add edbertchan/catstack/principle-read-state-artifacts@git:20260925.aec43bcPins git:20260925.aec43bc in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- edbertchan/catstack
- Path
corpus/skills/principle-read-state-artifacts/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 1
- Latest version
- git:20260925.aec43bc, committed Sep 25, 2026
- Size
- 3,291 bytes
- Repository stars
- 6
- License
- none declared
Apply when designing, reviewing, or authoring any mechanism that checks on work a background process already tracks: a babysit/watcher loop, a status check on a queue or worker, an agent verifying what a cron already did. Prefer reading the state artifact the worker already wrote (a ledger, digest, or status file) over re-deriving that state with live commands inside a session transcript.
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
# Read the State Artifact, Don't Re-derive It When a deterministic process already computes and records state, re-computing that state inside a session costs far more than the check itself — every command's raw output lands in the transcript and is re-sent on every later turn. **Why:** A cron worker that scans a queue every few minutes and appends results to a ledger has already paid for the scan, once, outside any transcript. An agent that re-runs `gh pr list`, `gh pr view`, or a sweep script to learn the same thing pays twice: once for the commands, and again on every subsequent turn that re-sends their accumulated output. The transcript is the bill — a 50-command sweep that adds 500KB of output costs ~500KB of resend per later turn, while reading a folded digest adds a few KB once. The fix is not "check less often"; it is "read what was already computed." **Pattern:** - Before writing a watch/babysit loop that checks live state, ask: does a worker, cron, or daemon already record this state? If yes, the loop's read step is a file read or a folded-digest command, not a live query. …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add edbertchan/catstack/principle-read-state-artifacts@sha256:c887ddf9fa7d4d5cThe line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260925.aec43bc, 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_fqp2u3qwycnz4ino)
2 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Sep 25, 2026.
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 (3291 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
edbertchan/catstack · 6 stars · license none declared · pushed 2026-10-22 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_fqp2u3qwycnz4ino GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=edbertchan/catstack/principle-read-state-artifacts GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/c887ddf9fa7d4d5c9ddfaee02dc516cd42b2bf3e95a32668376b2a80589e9198
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.