Mackenzie Bowes
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Skills

Agents that work the whole hour - and don't lie about it

time-bound turns "spend 30 minutes on this" into six five-minute rounds, each ended by a reminder the agent can't talk itself out of, so it keeps picking the next piece until the last round hands you the write-up.

Free, to use and to change. What it can see: only the chat you add it to.

Its short name: time-bound. Source on GitHub.

Install

Pick the one you use.

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add mbsi-labs/skills
/plugin install mbsi@skills

This adds every skill, and each one shows as mbsi:time-bound. To add only this skill, use this instead, and not both, or the skill shows twice:

/plugin marketplace add mbsi-labs/skills
/plugin install time-bound@skills

Changelog

Licence: MIT.

Read the skill itself

Open-ended work has no "done", so you will stop at the first natural pause, often after ten minutes. A countdown of reminders keeps you on it for the time you were given. (why)

1. Set up

  1. The length comes from the person who gave you the work. Do not choose one yourself.
  2. Keep the work in one place: a ticket or task if you track work that way, or a notes file. Other work should not pull you away until the time is up.
  3. Make one round per 5 minutes. With CronCreate (recurring: false), schedule one reminder for the end of each round. Each prompt names the task and its place: "Time-bound: review the bookkeeping project (round 4 of 12). Pick the next piece." The last prompt says: "Time-bound: <task> (round 12 of 12, the last one). Finish what you are on, write up what you found, and show it."
  4. Say how many rounds there are and when the last one fires, then start round 1 at once.

2. Each round

  1. Pick the next most useful small piece: one part of the project, one source, one question.
  2. Do it, and check it against the real thing.
  3. Add what you found to the running notes, then report it in one line.
  4. When a thread runs out, open another one: a different part, a different source, a harder question. You are out of ideas, not out of time.
  5. A round ends when its reminder fires, not when its piece is done. If you finish early, go deeper on the same piece until the reminder comes.

3. The last round

Finish the piece you are on. Write up the findings where their reader will look (a document for research, the ticket or issue for a review), show them, and close the task.

The reminders live in this session. They survive a context clear, but not the end of the session, and they fire only while you are idle.