If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have is a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career.
Use your Agent!
The repository provides an llms.txt file (see spec) for agent fetching.
If you don't want to read the docs, ask your agent to do it for you:
Please fetch the AUx skills repository and summarize the contents from llms.txt.
aux is a collection of atomic agent skills that wrap classic Unix read-only commands
(find, grep, diff, ls) with a thin agentic layer.
The tools already exist.
The power comes from letting agents do what they're good at—parameter selection—while
keeping execution fully deterministic, inspectable, and replayable.
Note: All skills in this repository are designed in accordance with ASI (Agentic Skill Interface) — a governance framework for deterministic, auditable agent skills.
Classic Unix tools are:
- extremely powerful
- extremely reliable
- extremely unfriendly at scale
Humans are bad at:
- choosing exhaustive search terms
- anticipating edge cases
- writing correct regexes under time pressure
- scaling these operations across large trees
Agents are excellent at those things, but unreliable if given too much authority.
aux bridges that gap.
- A facade layer over existing Unix commands
- Each skill maps 1:1 to a familiar verb:
/find→fd→ file enumeration/grep→rg→ text search
- Regex is expressed explicitly as pattern semantics inside
/findand/grepplans - Natural language is used only to express intent
- Agents generate parameters, not actions
- Scripts perform all execution
By design, AUx skill are not:
- A monolithic "search tool"
- A prompt framework
- RAG
- Embeddings
- Magic
- Mutation (by default)
If a task can be deterministically scripted, the agent is not allowed to do it.
-
Deterministic maximalism
- Scripts own execution
- argv arrays, not shell strings
- Bounded scope, time, and output
-
Subjective minimalism
- Agents select parameters only where humans fail
- No interpretation unless explicitly requested
-
Reason-after-reduction
- Shrink the surface first
- Reason on results, not the filesystem
-
Replayability
- Every run produces artifacts
- No silent overwrites
- Explicit lifecycle controls
| Skill | Description | Wraps | Schema |
|---|---|---|---|
| grep | Agent-assisted text search | rg (ripgrep) |
aux grep --schema |
| find | Agent-assisted file enumeration | fd / fdfind |
aux find --schema |
| diff | Deterministic git diff inspection | git diff |
aux diff --schema |
| ls | Deterministic directory state inspection | filesystem + git status |
aux ls --schema |
Schema is source of truth. Run aux <skill> --schema to get the current JSON schema for any skill.
Each skill is fully independent and self-contained:
aux/
skills/ # All skills live here
grep/
find/
diff/
ls/
cli/ # Unified execution backend
docs/ # Documentation
scripts/ # Installation scripts
Each skill owns:
- its schemas
- its scripts
- its artifacts
- its lifecycle
They share conventions, not shared code.
In controlled experiments comparing agent performance with and without aux skills:
| Metric | Without Skills | With Skills | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Context consumed | 47% (182k tokens) | 25% (98k tokens) | -47% tokens |
| Files read | 35 | 28 | -20% |
| Search operations | ~200-300 file scans | 6 targeted passes | -98% |
| Output quality | Excellent | Excellent | Same |
Key finding: Skills reduce token consumption by nearly half while maintaining output quality. The "search-before-read" discipline prevents agents from over-reading files they don't need.
# Install the CLI
cd cli && pip install -e .
# Verify dependencies
aux doctor
# Get schema for any skill
aux grep --schema
aux find --schema
# Run a search
aux grep "TODO" --root ./src --glob "*.py"aux makes classic Unix commands agent-operable
without sacrificing determinism, safety, or trust.