Claude Code Mods: Build Your Own Before You Install Anyone Else's.

Claude Code mods are live. It is quietly the biggest Claude Code release since skills.

But most people are getting them wrong. They install someone else's. Or they build a game to play while Claude thinks.

Do this first instead. Get Claude to read your own chats. It will tell you which Claude mods you need. I did it. It found four questions I ask every single day.

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What Claude Code mods are

Skills, hooks and MCP servers all sit outside Claude Code. Claude calls them when it needs them.

A mod sits inside. It runs for the whole session. It sees everything as it happens. And it can change it.

So a mod can:

• Put something on your screen, and keep it there.
• Remember things while you work.
• Stop Claude and ask you first.
• Add a command that runs straight away, with no waiting on the model.

This is not a side door. Anthropic now builds parts of Claude Code the same way. The diff view is a mod, and Anthropic's announcement says more of its own features will move across. Every mod is a Claude Code plugin, so it installs the same way as any other plugin. The Claude Code mods docs have the full list of what one can reach.

Why build your own first

You run a real business. And every day you lose minutes to the same small things.

What do I do next? What's left to do? Where's that file? Did that work?

A mod answers those before you ask. But only if it is built around your questions. Someone else's mod answers theirs.

Get Claude to read your own chats

I started with my own chat history. No guessing.

I asked Claude to read my own messages. Not its answers. Mine. It read 67 sessions, 440 messages, across 5 projects. Here's the prompt. Paste it into Claude Code as it is.

Read my last 20 sessions in each project. Only count the messages I typed. Skip tool results, system messages and anything run on a schedule.

Find three things:
→ Questions I keep asking you
→ Things I keep correcting
→ How I check your work

For each idea, give it a name, quote my exact words, and count how many messages and sessions it came up in. Say where it would show on screen and what it would show.

Rank the ideas by how much time they would save me. Say if something I already have covers it.

Ideas only. Build nothing.

The last line matters most. Ideas only. Build nothing. Because you pick. Then it builds.

What came back surprised me. I almost never reject what Claude does. Four times, in 440 messages. So I didn't need more guards.

Four questions kept coming up:

What I kept asking	How often
What's next?	13 times
What's left before I wrap up?	19 times
Where's that handoff?	24 times
Did it actually work?	19 times

It even quoted me back to myself, typos and all. It gave me nine ideas, ranked, each one backed by my own words. I built seven.

A count tells you a topic came up. It doesn't tell you why. You know why. So you pick.

Three of the mods I built

I run thirteen Claude mods now. All mine. Not one from a stranger. Here are three.

next-steps. Every time Claude finishes, three next steps show up above the prompt. I press one, two or three. I never sit there thinking, what do I do next? If you build one, start with this idea.

loose-ends. Above the prompt, there's a list of what's left before I close the chat. Files I haven't saved. Things I haven't rebuilt. When it's all done, it goes green.

client-doc-lint. This one saved me the other day. I went to publish a page. A mod stopped it. It had a dash I don't allow, and it wasn't set up for phones. Fix, publish anyway, or cancel. I hit fix.

You don't write the code for any of these. Claude Code comes with a skill for writing mods. You say what you want on screen, in plain words. Claude writes it. A small mod is three files and no build step.

The safety rule

A mod runs with the same access Claude Code has. It can read your files. Run programs. Use the internet. It can even hide things from you on screen. That's more power than a skill.

So here's my rule. No stranger's mod goes on my machine until it's been checked.

There's a command for it: claude plugin validate. It lists the events the mod listens to and the calls it makes. If a mod you don't know is using the internet, find out why before you install it.

Two more traps, both in the docs on mod events:

• A broken guard lets things through. If a mod's check crashes, Claude Code skips it and the command runs. Any mod that guards something needs a catch that blocks when its check fails. Ask Claude for one, then test it.
• Nobody home. If you run Claude Code on a schedule, a mod that asks a question gets no answer. Decide what it does when no one is there. Mine pass straight through.

And this is new. Mods change between releases. I re-check every mod after an update.

Start today

1. Update Claude Code. Mods need version 2.1.287 or later.
2. Run the audit on your own chats.
3. Pick the one thing you ask every single day.
4. Build that mod first. Just one.

Not every idea should be a mod. If you keep pasting the same instructions, that's a Claude skill, not a mod. And if you're new to Claude Code itself, start with Claude Code for non-technical founders.

The full Claude Mods guide has the rest: where a mod can show up on screen, the three moves every mod makes, when a hook is still enough, and every trap I've hit.

My Claude Code is built around how I work. Yours should be built around you. Run the audit and build your first mod.