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Prefer Unknown Over Any

Checked
marius-townhouse·vlatest·backend

This skill forces the AI to always choose "unknown" as an answer, useful for avoiding biased or speculative responses.

Repository

Install on your platform

Showing Claude Code. One command installs this skill into any of the agents below.

  1. 1

    Run this in your project

    terminal
    $ npx skills add marius-townhouse/effective-typescript-skills --skill prefer-unknown-over-any -a claude-code

  2. Uses the open-source skills CLI and needs Node.js. Add -g to install it for your user instead of this project.

What we know about this skill

Publisher

marius-townhouse

Taken from the source listing. We haven't verified who controls this account.

Install target

Live repository

Not pinned. Installing fetches whatever the repository holds at the time you run the command.

No human has reviewed this code. The checks below are a static scan of the files at one commit — nobody has run this skill or judged whether it works. A skill runs with whatever access you give your agent, so read the source before you install it.

Automated safety checks

scanned

This skill passed all 6 checks. We read its files at one commit and looked for the things that make a skill dangerous to run — not for whether it works.

  • Declares what it does: passed

    SKILL.md parses and declares a name and a description.

    SKILL.md exists, its frontmatter parses, and it declares a name and a description.

  • No undeclared network calls: passed

    Makes no network calls.

    Every host the skill dials — from its scripts, its config endpoints or the commands it tells the agent to run — is either well-known package and API infrastructure or declared in its own frontmatter. Links in documentation are not counted.

  • No obfuscated payloads: passed

    No encoded or obfuscated payloads.

    No base64, hex or compressed blob is decoded and then executed, and no encoded shell commands.

  • No credential access: passed

    Reads no keys, tokens, keychains or credential files.

    Neither the code nor the SKILL.md instructions read SSH keys, cloud credentials, keychains, token stores, browser cookie databases or dotfiles that hold secrets.

  • No pipe-to-shell installers: passed

    No pipe-to-shell or download-and-run installers.

    No `curl … | sh` pattern, in the code or in the instructions, that runs code fetched at run time.

  • Pinned to a commit: passed

    Scanned marius-townhouse/effective-typescript-skills at d754db2077.

    The exact upstream commit SHA that was scanned is recorded, so the result refers to specific bytes.

Commit
d754db2077
Manifest
skills/prefer-unknown-over-any/SKILL.md
Scanned
1 file, 276 lines
This is a static scan, not a review. It reads the skill's files; it does not run them, and it cannot tell you whether the skill is any good or whether the code does what its description says. A skill runs with whatever access you give your agent.
What each check looks for →

About this skill

What it does

This skill guides the AI agent to prefer using unknown over any in TypeScript code. It promotes type safety by forcing explicit type checks and conversions, preventing potential runtime errors that can occur when any disables type checking. The goal is to write more robust and maintainable TypeScript code.

When to use it

  • When refactoring existing TypeScript codebases to improve type safety.
  • During code reviews to identify instances where any could be replaced with unknown.
  • When teaching or learning best practices for TypeScript development.
  • To ensure that the AI agent generates more secure and predictable code.

Key capabilities

  • Identifies uses of any.
  • Suggests replacement with unknown.
  • Provides rationale for using unknown over any.

Example prompts

  • "Refactor this TypeScript function to use unknown instead of any where appropriate."
  • "Explain why I should prefer unknown over any in this code snippet."
  • “Review this code and suggest ways to improve type safety by using unknown.”

Tips & gotchas

This skill requires a basic understanding of TypeScript's type system. Be prepared to handle explicit type assertions and checks when replacing any with unknown.