Reference Before Plan

by Optim-Agent

Reference Before Plan is an AI Engineering skill for Claude Code, published by Optim-Agent in optim-plans.

489 stars1 forkson Optim-Agent/optim-plansAdded 2026/08/11+35% in starsRepository updated 2026/08/09

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agent-skillsbrainstormingclaude-skillscodex-skillsdeveloper-toolsgrill-mehuman-in-the-looplooploop-engineeringplanning

Install in seconds

Install Reference Before Plan

Copy Reference Before Plan into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/Optim-Agent/optim-plans/tree/main/skills/reference-before-plan ~/.claude/skills/reference-before-plan

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/Optim-Agent/optim-plans.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: skills/reference-before-plan/SKILL.md in Optim-Agent/optim-plans
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/reference-before-plan
Collection: One of 5 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: AI Engineering — 2451 skills

What Reference Before Plan does

Gathers and analyzes external references such as projects, articles, and papers before creating a Prime Agent plan, ensuring plans are evidence-based and scrutinized.

Reference Before Plan is cataloged under AI Engineering on DirSkills. Reference Before Plan comes from a repository tagged agent-skills, brainstorming, claude-skills, codex-skills and developer-tools.

Documentation

README

Excerpt

Reference Before Plan

Use this skill when external references must shape the plan before implementation.

Setup

Read ../_shared/references/prime-planning-workflow.md, ../_shared/references/state-and-config.md, and ../_shared/references/plan-artifact-template.md.
Initialize state with python3 scripts/optim_plans.py init --repo <target-repo> --topic <topic> --plan-level reference-before-plan --request-text <original-request>.
Use .git/optim-plans for controller state and docs/optim-plans/YYYY-MM-DD-topic/ for public artifacts.

Required Reference Flow

This is the opening of the README. Read the full README on GitHub.

Frequently asked about Reference Before Plan

What else does Optim-Agent publish alongside Reference Before Plan?
Reference Before Plan is one of 5 skills that DirSkills catalogs from Optim-Agent/optim-plans, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include Create a Big Plan, Create a Plan and Create a Small Plan. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way Reference Before Plan does, and is maintained by Optim-Agent in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the Optim-Agent/optim-plans page.
How does Reference Before Plan compare to other AI Engineering skills?
Reference Before Plan ranks #2197 by stars among the 2451 AI Engineering skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Architecture Decision Records, AI-First Engineering and Agentic OS. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of Reference Before Plan against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.