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deft-directive-cost SKILL.md skillA

deft-directive-cost from deftai/directive is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned

mdr add deftai/directive/deft-directive-cost@git:20260826.6a306d0

Pins git:20260826.6a306d0 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade: A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind: SKILL.md skill
Repository: deftai/directive
Path: content/skills/deft-directive-cost/SKILL.md
Versions recorded: 3
Latest version: git:20260826.6a306d0, committed Aug 26, 2026
First version recorded: Jun 22, 2026
Size: 9,740 bytes
Repository stars: 31
License: a license file GitHub does not identify

Pre-build cost & budget transparency phase. Use after the project SPECIFICATION is approved and before the build skill kicks off, to produce a plain-English COST-ESTIMATE.md the user can read, react to, and explicitly accept, rescope, no-build, or skip with a recorded reason. Audience is non- technical users; voice is dollars and whole-number bands, not spreadsheets.

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

<!-- AUTO-GENERATED by task packs:render -- DO NOT EDIT MANUALLY -->
<!-- Purpose: rendered skill -->
<!-- Source of truth: packs/skills/skills-pack-0.1.json -->
<!-- Regenerate with: task packs:render -->
<!-- Edit the source, not this file. Slice instead of loading every SKILL.md: task packs:slice skills by-trigger --trigger <kw> (or list) -->

# Deft Directive Cost

Plain-English cost & budget transparency phase between SPECIFICATION
approval and build kickoff. Closes the adoption-blocker surfaced by
issue #739 (and issue #151 umbrella) where users finished the spec
flow and stopped at build because deft offered no cost signal.

Legend (from RFC2119): !=MUST, ~=SHOULD, ≉=SHOULD NOT, ⊗=MUST NOT, ?=MAY.

## When to Use

- After `skills/deft-directive-setup/SKILL.md` Phase 3 has produced either greenfield authority (`xbrief/PROJECT-DEFINITION.xbrief.json` plus lifecycle scopes) or an approved full-spec compatibility artifact
- Before `skills/deft-directive-build/SKILL.md` kicks off
- When the user says "cost", "budget", "pre-build cost", "how much will
  this cost", or asks to estimate cost before building

## Audience & Voice
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint

mdr add deftai/directive/deft-directive-cost@sha256:cf5eb4537c933f6d

The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260826.6a306d0, 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.

Badge

[![mdr](https://markdownregistry.com/badge/art_ktnedd3brt22a5e4.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_ktnedd3brt22a5e4)

2 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.

Versions

The registry has recorded 3 versions of this file, between Jun 22, 2026 and Aug 26, 2026, about one every 32 days.

version	committed	commit	size	audit
git:20260826.6a306d0 latest	2026-08-26	6a306d0	9,740 B	A	view · diff
git:20260701.0a1aa9c	2026-07-01	0a1aa9c	9,361 B	A	view · diff
git:20260622.035cde3	2026-06-22	035cde3	9,361 B	A	view

Audit of the latest version

A 17 of 17 checks passed. Fixed automatic checks with no AI involved, so the same checks give the same answer every run.

pass: Frontmatter block present
pass: Frontmatter declares a name
pass: Frontmatter declares a description
pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (9740 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

GitHub

deftai/directive · 31 stars · license a license file GitHub does not identify · pushed 2026-10-22 · branch master

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_ktnedd3brt22a5e4
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=deftai/directive/deft-directive-cost
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/cf5eb4537c933f6d0b7ad9c160f61afe03b675ab92d11f7b3dd7af46be6d3d84

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.

More from deftai/directive

deft-directive-build SKILL.md skill

deftai/directive · .agents/skills/deft-directive-build/SKILL.md · Build a project from scope vBRIEFs following Directive standards.