mechanic-quote-decoder
Read a garage quote or invoice like someone who can't be padded — which line items connect to your actual symptom, which are while-we're-in-there additions, the questions that make soft lines disappear, when a second opinion pays for itself, and the scripts for declining work without souring the relationship. Use when someone says 'is this mechanic quote fair', 'the garage called and now it's £900', 'do I really need all this', or before authorizing repairs. Produces a line-by-line decode, the callback questions, and the authorize/decline/second-opinion sort. Not a diagnosis — it's the interro
npx skills add mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills --skill mechanic-quote-decoder --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Mechanic Quote Decoder Skill Most garages are honest; the padding problem is structural anyway: you can't see the car, you can't judge the diagnosis, and the quote arrives by phone with a "while it's up on the lift" rider. The defense isn't mechanical knowledge — it's *interrogation structure*: which lines trace to the symptom you brought the car in with, which are discoveries (legitimate but separately decidable), which are maintenance upsells wearing urgency, and the magic question that dissolves soft lines: "which of these are safety-critical *today*, and which can wait until the next service?" Honest garages answer that cleanly. The answer's shape tells you which kind you're dealing with. ## What This Skill Produces - A **line-by-line decode** of the quote: symptom-linked / legitimate discovery / maintenance-due / soft upsell — with the reasoning per line and the 🔴🟡🟢 urgency read *as claimed vs as evidenced* - The **callback questions**, scripted: the safety-critical-today question, the "can I see/keep the old part?" line, the failed-vs- worn distinction ("is it broken, or wearing?"), labor-hours clarity - A **sort**: authorize now / decline politely / defer to next servic
- What This Skill Produces
- Required Inputs
- Framework
- Output Format
- Quality Checks
- Anti-Patterns
- Related
What does the mechanic-quote-decoder skill do?
Read a garage quote or invoice like someone who can't be padded — which line items connect to your actual symptom, which are while-we're-in-there additions, the questions that make soft lines disappear, when a second opinion pays for itself, and the scripts for declining work without souring the relationship. Use when someone says 'is this mechanic quote fair', 'the garage called and now it's £900', 'do I really need all this', or before authorizing repairs. Produces a line-by-line decode, the callback questions, and the authorize/decline/second-opinion sort. Not a diagnosis — it's the interro
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills --skill mechanic-quote-decoder --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills, a repository with 1,255 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.