machine-real-time (MRT)

Claude: "this project will probably take 3 months to complete"

Me: 🫸✋

A SKILL.md that stops AI models from giving human timelines for work they are going to execute at machine speed. Estimates come back in MRT — machine real time.

The problem

Model training data is decades of human project histories — sprints, standups, review cycles, coordination overhead. Ask a model "how long will this take?" and it pattern-matches to that history instead of to its own execution speed. You get "2–3 weeks" for a task the model finishes in the same session.

What this skill does

• Makes the model estimate as the executor, in MRT (minutes/hours of autonomous loops), not calendar-project time.
• Splits every estimate into agent execution time vs genuine external waits (DNS, CI, app review, human sign-off) — and bans padding beyond the named waits.
• Turns plans into execution queues: if every step is agent-executable, the model runs them instead of proposing phases.
• Parallel by default: independent tasks become concurrent sub-agents, not a sequential roadmap.
• Makes the model own its contribution — "I built and tested it," not "one would then implement." This is a team effort now.

Install

Claude Code — as a skill:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/machine-real-time
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DannyDesert/machine-real-time/main/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/machine-real-time/SKILL.md

Or drop it into any project at .claude/skills/machine-real-time/SKILL.md.

Grok — same file, different folder:

mkdir -p ~/.grok/skills/machine-real-time
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DannyDesert/machine-real-time/main/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.grok/skills/machine-real-time/SKILL.md

Anything else — paste SKILL.md into your system prompt / agent instructions. It's plain markdown.

Always-on (recommended): @-include it in your global instructions (e.g. ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md):

@~/.claude/skills/machine-real-time/SKILL.md

License

MIT