How do I install the Ephemeral State In Tmp skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add amitkot/ephemeral-state-in-tmp in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Ephemeral State In Tmp safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Ephemeral State In Tmp?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Ephemeral State In Tmp free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Ephemeral State In Tmp?

amitkot (@amitkot) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Ephemeral State In Tmp by amitkot — Agent Skill

Name: Ephemeral State In Tmp
Author: amitkot

Ephemeral State In Tmp

Use when about to write a state, cursor, marker, scratch, or progress file for a cron loop, monitor task, polling job, recurring schedule, or any session-scoped/ephemeral data — directs the file to /tmp/<name>.json instead of ~/.claude/ or other config dirs.

amitkot 7fe3970 1.4 KB Updated Sep 17, 2026

File contents

Session-only state files belong in /tmp

When you need to write a state file whose lifetime equals or is shorter than the current session, cron job, or monitor task — write it under /tmp/, not ~/.claude/ or any other config dir.

Why

The session/cron/task dies or expires; whatever you wrote stays. A file in /tmp self-cleans on reboot and matches the lifetime correctly. A file in ~/.claude/ becomes orphan state cluttering the user's settings dir with no automatic cleanup, and the user has to find and delete it manually.

Examples

Cron-loop cursor tracking the last observed run id → /tmp/<feature>-state.json, not ~/.claude/.<feature>-state.json
Monitor scratch tracker → /tmp/<task>-progress.json
Polling-state file read/written by a recurring task → /tmp/poll-cursor.json

When `~/.claude/` IS right

Only for state that should survive across sessions: durable preferences, memory entries indexed via MEMORY.md, settings that persist beyond the lifetime of any single task. If the file is read by a session-only cron, it's not durable — it goes in /tmp.

Frequently asked questions