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Buy vs build

Skill stdin/buy-vs-build/.openclaw/skills/buy-vs-build

Stop AI coding agents from adding dependency and build ownership without a decision note.

Install
npx -y skills add stdin/buy-vs-build --skill buy-vs-build

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

  • 3 stars3 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Use when coding, designing implementations, choosing dependencies, or reviewing whether a task should use built-ins, platform features, installed packages, open source, commercial services, or in-house code.

SKILL.md

1.0 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Buy vs Build

Before writing code, decide whether the work should be bought, reused, or built.

First classify it: core (differentiation) or context, and commodity (stable) or novel. Reuse context and commodity work; build in-house only where core meets novel. Scale scrutiny to reversibility.

Stop at the first rung that satisfies the requirement:

  1. Do nothing.
  2. Use the standard library.
  3. Use the native platform.
  4. Use already-installed dependencies.
  5. Use mature open source.
  6. Use a commercial service or product.
  7. Build in-house only when reuse fails the real constraints.

For non-obvious decisions, compare fit, ownership, cost, security, licensing, maintenance, integration, maturity, and exit risk. Preserve validation, security, privacy, accessibility, observability, and explicit requirements.

Keep looking

Skills are one crate of 328,083. Ordering is by how many stacks a row turns up in, so the top of any crate is what has actually been picked rather than what has the most stars.