bug-localization

Identify the precise location of bugs in source code, modules, and systems. Use this skill when debugging applications, investigating test failures, analyzing error reports, tracing runtime issues, or performing root cause analysis. Analyzes stack traces, error messages, failing tests, and code patterns to pinpoint buggy functions, classes, files, or modules with confidence rankings and supporting evidence.

Quality

76%

Does it follow best practices?

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Securityby

Passed

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Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./skills/bug-localization/SKILL.md

Quality

Content

56%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

The content is richly actionable with concrete worked examples and a usable report template, but it is significantly over-long and explains basics Claude already knows. It is also a monolithic wall of text that would benefit from splitting detailed patterns into reference files.

Suggestions

Cut tutorial-level explanations (what a race condition is, += vs =, integer division, null checks) — Claude already knows these; keep only the localization reasoning and confidence logic.

Move the five 'Localization Patterns' and the 'Investigation Strategies' into separate reference files (e.g. references/patterns.md, references/strategies.md) and link to them from the body, leaving SKILL.md as a concise overview + workflow.

Trim the 'Core Capabilities' and 'Confidence Scoring' bullet lists to the non-obvious signals, or fold the confidence rubric into the report template to reduce duplication.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	At ~700 lines the body is noticeably verbose, extensively explaining concepts Claude already knows (race conditions, += vs =, integer division, null checks, off-by-one) and padding obvious 'Core Capabilities' and 'Confidence Scoring' bullet lists; much could be trimmed without losing value.	2 / 5
Actionability	Provides concrete, mostly executable worked examples (KeyError, AttributeError, assertion, boundary, concurrency), a copy-paste-ready bug-location report template, and specific verification commands; minor gaps where some 'code' blocks are analysis output rather than runnable code.	4 / 5
Workflow Clarity	A clear 5-step workflow (Gather Evidence → Analyze Context → Locate Suspects → Rank → Investigation Plan) is well sequenced, with verification steps described in Step 5 and a Hypothesis-Testing strategy containing an eliminate-and-retry loop; minor validation-checkpoint gaps since this is read-only analysis.	4 / 5
Progressive Disclosure	Well-structured with clear section headers, but the file is a monolithic 700-line document with no bundle files; the five detailed patterns, strategies, confidence rubric, and report template are all inlined when several clearly belong in separate reference files.	3 / 5
	Total	13 / 20 Passed

Description

96%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

A strong description: it states concrete capabilities and provides explicit 'Use when' triggers covering the natural debugging vocabulary. The only weakness is mild overlap risk with generic debugging skills from broad trigger phrasing.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Lists multiple concrete actions — 'Identify the precise location of bugs', 'Analyze stack traces, error messages, failing tests, and code patterns', 'pinpoint buggy functions, classes, files, or modules with confidence rankings and supporting evidence' — with comprehensive coverage; third-person voice is used.	5 / 5
Completeness	Explicitly answers both 'what' (identify bug locations via trace/error/test analysis with confidence rankings) and 'when' ('Use this skill when debugging applications, investigating test failures...') with concrete trigger phrases.	5 / 5
Trigger Term Quality	'Use this skill when debugging applications, investigating test failures, analyzing error reports, tracing runtime issues, or performing root cause analysis' provides comprehensive natural trigger phrases users would actually say.	5 / 5
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The localization-with-confidence-rankings niche is distinct, but broad trigger terms like 'debugging applications' and 'investigating test failures' carry minor overlap risk with a general debugging skill; mostly distinct.	4 / 5
	Total	19 / 20 Passed

Validation

93%

Warnings & errors only

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 15 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
skill_md_line_count	SKILL.md is long (702 lines); consider splitting into references/ and linking	Warning

	Total	15 / 16 Passed

Repository: ArabelaTso/Skills-4-SE
Path: skills/bug-localization/SKILL.md
Commit: 4f38503

Reviewed: 18 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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