# Audit Instructions > Audit instruction text against Anthropic's current published guidance and report what to delete. - Skill: `caneff/audit-instructions` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add caneff/audit-instructions` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/caneff/audit-instructions/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Security - Author: caneff (https://skillmd.com/u/caneff) - Updated: 2026-09-22 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/caneff/audit-instructions --- Audit instruction text — a `CLAUDE.md`, a skill's `SKILL.md`, a hook prompt, a system prompt — against what Anthropic publishes **today**, and report what to cut. Targets: the paths in `$ARGUMENTS`, else the `CLAUDE.md` chain in scope. Read-only. Report the verdicts; the user applies them. ## 1. Fetch the receipts Read every URL in `SOURCES.md`, plus the page for the exact model running this session. Use what is published today, never what you remember — recalled guidance is not a receipt. A fetch that fails is **NOT RUN**: report it and stop. Done when every source is fetched or named NOT RUN. ## 2. One verdict per instruction Go line by line. Every instruction gets one **verdict** — DELETE, KEEP, or REWRITE — with the reason in plain English. **No receipt, no delete.** A DELETE quotes the sentence from the fetched guidance that justifies it. Cannot find one? The verdict is KEEP. Never invent a receipt. Done when every instruction line in every target file carries a verdict. ## 3. Flags Where to look. A flag points; the quoted guidance decides. - **Verify-twice** — "always verify your work", "double-check before answering". The model already self-corrects. These make it do the work twice, and the user pays for both. - **"Only flag the big issues"** — taken literally, so the user gets told less than they wanted. Rewrite as: report everything, I do the filtering. - **"Don't overthink"** — rules against thinking make internal tags leak into the answer. - **Role padding** — "you are an expert with 20 years of experience" was once good advice, now optional. Keep a role only where it genuinely changes the output. - **Stale examples** — examples written for an old model teach old habits. One current example beats ten stale ones. **Truth rules are protected.** "Only claim what you verified" is not a severity filter, it stops made-up facts. Rules like that stay, whatever else goes. Fetched guidance outranks any flag here. When it does, say so in the report. ## 4. What is missing Current models often want steering older files lack — keep answers short, cap document length, say how to update me while you work, hold the task scope, limit the helpers you spawn. Treat these as candidates, not a checklist to fill. Before surfacing any addition, classify it: - **Repo-specific gap** — a fact about *this* repo, its code, or its workflow that the file omits. Worth adding. Give exact paste-ready wording. - **Generic steering** — advice that fits any repo and belongs in the reader's global `CLAUDE.md`, persona, or harness config, not a repo file. Drop it, or name it once as "your global, not this repo file" — never emit it as a repo edit. On a lean chain the reader already sets these globally, so proposing them is bloat-by-addition. Check each candidate against the fetched guidance and against what the target file (and its `CLAUDE.md` chain in scope) already says — an existing line covering the ground means no gap. Never emit steering pinned to one model page as a durable repo line: if the only receipt is a model-version page, it is that model's advice, not a fact about the repo, and it rots on the next model change. On a lean, owner-written chain, the honest result here is often **0 additions**. Report zero when zero is true; do not manufacture five. Done when every candidate is either classified (repo-specific gap or generic steering) or dropped as already covered. ## 5. Report The default deliverable is a self-contained HTML report, styled with the **visual-teach** design system. Render it per `~/.agents/skills/all-audits/harness/HTML-REPORT.md` — asset delivery, scaffold, tmpdir resolution, and the open-and-hand-off step all live there; this skill only differs in what the report holds. Write to `/audit-instructions-/report.html`, and print only the honest count and the report's absolute path. - **Header** — a one-line verdict, then a `vt-metabar` with the **honest count**: "307 lines in · 4 delete · 4 rewrite · 5 additions." - **Verdict rows** — one per instruction, in a `vt-table`: my line | verdict | why | Anthropic's line. Color the verdict `vt-pill bad` for DELETE, `vt-pill warn` for REWRITE, `vt-pill good` for KEEP. - **Missing** — a section giving the **exact paste-ready wording** for each repo-specific gap section 4 surfaced. Often there are none; say so plainly rather than padding to five. - **NOT RUN** — a `vt-callout warn` naming everything you could not check. Never a clean bill you did not earn. If most of the file should go, say so plainly in the verdict. The scaffolding the user is proudest of is the likeliest casualty.