cost-trend-analysis
Use when analyzing whether costs are growing, declining, or stable over time — for forecasting, budget planning, or understanding spending velocity
39
37%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
—
No eval scenarios have been run
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./plugins/cost-analyst/skills/cost-trend-analysis/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
40%Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.
The description focuses almost entirely on when to use the skill but fails to articulate what the skill concretely does. It lacks specific actions or outputs, making it difficult for Claude to understand the skill's actual capabilities. The trigger terms are reasonable but not comprehensive enough to cover the full range of user language.
Suggestions
Add concrete actions describing what the skill does, e.g., 'Analyzes cost data over time to identify trends, calculate growth rates, and project future spending.'
Expand trigger terms to include common user phrases like 'expense trends', 'burn rate', 'cost trajectory', 'spending patterns', or 'budget forecast'.
Specify input/output details such as what data formats it works with or what kind of analysis outputs it produces (charts, summaries, projections).
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | The description lacks concrete actions. It mentions 'analyzing whether costs are growing, declining, or stable' but doesn't specify what the skill actually does — no mention of specific operations like calculating trends, generating charts, producing reports, or processing particular data formats. | 1 / 3 |
Completeness | The description has a 'Use when...' clause addressing when to use it, but the 'what does this do' part is very weak — it only vaguely implies analysis without specifying concrete capabilities or outputs. | 2 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes some relevant natural keywords like 'costs', 'forecasting', 'budget planning', 'spending velocity', but misses common variations users might say such as 'expense trends', 'cost analysis', 'burn rate', 'spend over time', or 'financial trends'. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | The focus on cost trend analysis provides some specificity, but terms like 'forecasting' and 'budget planning' are broad enough to overlap with general financial analysis or budgeting skills. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 7 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
35%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill is comprehensive but excessively verbose, explaining many concepts Claude already understands (growth patterns, what causes seasonal cycles, basic forecasting concepts). The workflow is well-structured with clear steps but lacks validation checkpoints and error handling. The API call examples use unclear function signatures that may not map to actual tools, reducing actionability.
Suggestions
Cut the 'Common Trend Patterns and Causes' section entirely or move to a reference file — Claude already understands these concepts and can identify them from data.
Remove the 'Tips for Effective Analysis' section and inline the one or two non-obvious tips into relevant workflow steps.
Replace pseudocode API calls (get_cost_data) with actual tool names and parameters, or reference the tools-reference.md for exact syntax.
Add validation checkpoints: verify data completeness before calculating growth rates, sanity-check projections against historical ranges, and handle cases where insufficient data exists for trend analysis.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | Extremely verbose at ~300+ lines. Extensive sections explaining concepts Claude already knows (what growth patterns mean, what causes exponential growth, what a weekly cycle is). The 'Common Trend Patterns and Causes' section, 'Tips for Effective Analysis', and much of the output format template are unnecessary padding. The skill could be reduced to a third of its size without losing actionable content. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | Provides some concrete Python code for growth calculations and pseudocode-style API calls, but the API calls use invented function signatures (get_cost_data, get_available_dimensions) that aren't clearly tied to actual tool names. The forecast section uses plain English ('If last 3 months show consistent $5k/month increase') rather than executable code. Mixed between actionable and vague. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | Steps are clearly numbered (Steps 1-8) with a logical sequence, but there are no validation checkpoints or feedback loops. No guidance on what to do if API calls fail, if data is insufficient for trend analysis, or how to verify that calculations are correct. For a skill involving projections and financial analysis, missing validation caps this at 2. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | References external files appropriately (best-practices.md, cloudzero-tools-reference.md, etc.) with clear 'See Also' section, but the main file itself is monolithic with massive inline content that should be split out — the 'Common Trend Patterns and Causes' section, 'Advanced Techniques', and the detailed output format template could all be separate reference files. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 7 / 12 Passed |
Validation
90%Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.
Validation — 10 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
| Criteria | Description | Result |
|---|---|---|
frontmatter_unknown_keys | Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata | Warning |
Total | 10 / 11 Passed | |
- Repository
- Cloudzero/cloudzero-claude-marketplace
- Commit
760a9c7
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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