# Skill cleaner > Use when Codex or OpenClaw skills need auditing for budget, usage and duplicates. Codex/OpenClaw skill audit: live budget, usage, duplicates, compact descriptions. ## Facts - Type: Agent skill - Discipline: Engineering - Author: Peter Steinberger (https://github.com/steipete) - Upstream: https://github.com/steipete/agent-scripts/tree/main/skills/skill-cleaner - Source file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/steipete/agent-scripts/main/skills/skill-cleaner/SKILL.md (4182 bytes, sha256:32e482ba17945ac7ee1c8d40087346b093193df034391a331da76ca42adeae37) - Licence: MIT - Upstream copy last changed: 2026-09-17 - Status: listed, not yet ruled on by the curator ## Use it I want to use the Skill cleaner skill by Peter Steinberger. This is what it does, in the author's own words: Codex/OpenClaw skill audit: live budget, usage, duplicates, compact descriptions. Download the whole folder at https://github.com/steipete/agent-scripts/tree/main/skills/skill-cleaner, SKILL.md and every file beside it, into your skills directory: ~/.claude/skills/skill-cleaner/ for Claude Code, ~/.agents/skills/skill-cleaner/ for Codex, ~/.cursor/skills/skill-cleaner/ for Cursor. Get it from the author's repo, not from startupskills.dev. Then tell me the path you installed it to and how to invoke it. Nothing here is vendored: install from the author's repo, not from this site. A verbatim copy of the author's file follows for reading, under the licence reproduced after it; the current file is in the author's repo. ## Links - Page: https://startupskills.dev/steipete/skill-cleaner - Author: https://startupskills.dev/steipete - Index: https://startupskills.dev/llms.txt ## The file itself --- name: skill-cleaner description: "Codex/OpenClaw skill audit: live budget, usage, duplicates, compact descriptions." --- # Skill Cleaner Use this when trimming skill prompt budget, finding duplicate skills, auditing enabled/disabled skill roots, or deciding which skills/plugins to remove. ## Workflow 1. Run the analyzer from this skill directory or repo root: ```bash node --experimental-strip-types skills/skill-cleaner/scripts/skill-cleaner.ts --months 3 ``` Useful variants: ```bash node --experimental-strip-types skills/skill-cleaner/scripts/skill-cleaner.ts --no-logs node --experimental-strip-types skills/skill-cleaner/scripts/skill-cleaner.ts --no-live --no-logs node --experimental-strip-types skills/skill-cleaner/scripts/skill-cleaner.ts --months 6 --max-log-mb 800 --deep-logs node --experimental-strip-types skills/skill-cleaner/scripts/skill-cleaner.ts --context-tokens 272000 --budget-percent 2 --no-logs node --experimental-strip-types skills/skill-cleaner/scripts/skill-cleaner.ts --root ~/Dropbox/boxd/skills --no-logs node --experimental-strip-types skills/skill-cleaner/scripts/skill-cleaner.ts --root ~/.agents/skills --root-only --no-logs ``` 2. Read the report in this order: - `Skill Budget`: live Codex inventory, 2% budget, budgeted usage, and full-description pressure. - `Description candidates`: long descriptions where relaxed grammar saves prompt budget. - `Duplicates`: same skill name or near-identical description/body across Codex, plugin cache, repo siblings, and personal skill roots. - `Unused candidates`: no recent user mention or actual `SKILL.md` read in recent Codex/OpenClaw logs. - `Root summary`: where skills came from and whether config marks them disabled. 3. Before deleting or editing: - Verify the kept copy exists and is loaded. - Prefer deleting repo-local or `agent-scripts` duplicates when Codex built-ins cover them. - Keep repo-local OpenClaw maintainer skills when they encode repo policy or live operations. - Preserve trigger nouns in descriptions: product, tool, action, object. ## Analyzer Notes - By default, `codex debug prompt-input` supplies the exact model-visible skill list, order, names, and aliased paths. `--no-live` forces the broader filesystem fallback. - The broad filesystem scan remains for duplicate, disabled, and archived-cache diagnostics; it is not treated as the loaded inventory. - The script mirrors Codex's model-visible line shape: `- name: description (file: path)`. - It applies Codex-like frontmatter rules: YAML frontmatter only, default name from parent dir, single-line sanitized `name` and `description`. - It follows Codex `core-skills/src/render.rs`: 2% of raw `context_window`, token cost `ceil(utf8_bytes / 4)`, then full descriptions -> equal description truncation -> omitted minimum lines. Alias-table line cost is included. - It reads `~/.codex/models_cache.json` for GPT-5.5 `context_window`; fallback is 272,000 tokens and 2%. - It scans only normal Codex/plugin/repo skill roots by default. Extra folders such as Dropbox archives are included only with `--root `. - `--root-only` requires at least one `--root `, skips the live Codex inventory, and scans only those supplied roots. - It realpath-dedupes roots, so symlinked roots such as `~/.codex/skills/agent-scripts -> ~/Projects/agent-scripts/skills` do not create false duplicates. - For duplicate names, it reports description/body similarity and suggests deletion candidates only when bodies are near copies. Keep priority defaults to direct Codex system skills, then direct Codex skills, then plugin skills, then personal/repo copies. - It scans `~/.codex/history.jsonl` and recent `~/.codex/sessions/**/*.jsonl` by default. Add `--deep-logs` for archived sessions and common OpenClaw/Clawd log folders. - Usage evidence is heuristic: user `$skill`/`use skill` mentions and paths observed in tool-call arguments. ## Output Policy - Suggest first; edit only when the user asks. - If asked to apply cleanup, make small grouped commits: descriptions, deletes, config disables. - Do not delete ignored/untracked skill dirs without naming the destination or confirming they are disposable. ## Licence of the file above The file above is https://raw.githubusercontent.com/steipete/agent-scripts/main/skills/skill-cleaner/SKILL.md, by Peter Steinberger, reproduced without changes. - Source: https://github.com/steipete/agent-scripts/tree/main/skills/skill-cleaner - Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Peter Steinberger - Licence: MIT, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/steipete/agent-scripts/main/LICENSE The repo's licence file, verbatim from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/steipete/agent-scripts/main/LICENSE: MIT License Copyright (c) 2026 Peter Steinberger Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.