Use when identifying where cloud spend is concentrated — which services, accounts, teams, or regions are driving the most cost — to prioritize optimization efforts
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/top-cost-drivers/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 functions primarily as a 'when to use' statement but fails to articulate what the skill concretely does. It lacks specific actions (e.g., parsing billing CSVs, generating cost breakdowns, querying cost APIs) and relies on abstract language about identifying cost concentration. The trigger terms are reasonable but could be more comprehensive with specific cloud provider names and common cost-related terminology.
Suggestions
Add concrete actions describing what the skill does, e.g., 'Analyzes cloud billing data to generate cost breakdowns by service, account, team, and region' before the 'Use when' clause.
Include more natural trigger terms and variations such as 'AWS', 'Azure', 'GCP', 'billing', 'FinOps', 'cost report', 'cloud budget', or 'spending analysis'.
Specify the inputs/outputs or formats the skill works with (e.g., 'Parses Cost and Usage Reports (CUR), billing CSVs, or cloud provider APIs') to improve distinctiveness.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | The description lacks concrete actions. It mentions 'identifying where cloud spend is concentrated' but doesn't specify what the skill actually does (e.g., generates reports, parses billing data, creates dashboards). The language is abstract and outcome-oriented rather than action-oriented. | 1 / 3 |
Completeness | The description has a 'Use when...' clause that addresses the 'when' aspect well, but the 'what does this do' part is weak — it only describes the analytical goal (identifying cost concentration) without specifying concrete capabilities or actions the skill performs. | 2 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Contains some relevant keywords like 'cloud spend', 'services', 'accounts', 'teams', 'regions', and 'cost' that users might naturally use. However, it misses common variations like 'AWS', 'Azure', 'GCP', 'billing', 'cost explorer', 'budget', or 'invoice'. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | The focus on cloud cost concentration and optimization is somewhat specific, but 'cloud spend' and 'cost optimization' are broad enough to overlap with other cloud management or FinOps-related skills. It doesn't clearly carve out a unique niche. | 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 provides a comprehensive guide to cloud cost analysis but suffers significantly from verbosity — it tries to cover every possible analysis pattern inline rather than keeping the main skill lean and deferring details to references. The API examples are helpful but appear to be pseudocode rather than fully executable tool invocations. The workflow is reasonably clear but lacks explicit validation checkpoints for error cases.
Suggestions
Reduce the body by 50%+: move the 4 'Common Analysis Patterns', 'Advanced Techniques', and 'Tips for Effective Analysis' sections into a separate reference file, keeping only the core 7-step workflow in SKILL.md
Trim the 'When to Use' section to 3-4 representative triggers and remove obvious keywords like 'top, biggest, largest' that Claude can infer
Add explicit validation checkpoints: what to do when a dimension query returns no data, how to verify totals match expectations before presenting results
Clarify whether `get_cost_data()` is an actual tool name or pseudocode — if it's a real tool, show the exact invocation syntax; if not, reference the tools reference file for the actual API
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is extremely verbose at ~250+ lines. It over-explains patterns (4 common analysis patterns that are essentially the same structure), repeats similar API call examples with minor variations, includes tips that Claude already knows ('Start broad, then narrow', 'Focus on actionable insights'), and has a lengthy output format template that could be much more compact. The 'When to Use' section lists 10 triggers when 3-4 would suffice. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | The API call examples provide concrete function signatures with parameters, which is helpful. However, they appear to be pseudocode rather than fully executable code — `get_cost_data()` and `get_available_dimensions()` are shown without import context or tool invocation syntax. The output format section is a template rather than a concrete example with real data. The security constraints for Python execution are specific and actionable. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | Steps 1-7 provide a clear sequence, and the 'Critical Rule: All Math In Code' is an important validation checkpoint. However, there are no explicit validation or error-handling checkpoints between steps — e.g., what to do if a dimension query returns empty results, or how to verify the data before presenting it. Step 7 is marked optional without clear criteria for when to include it. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The skill references several external files (best-practices.md, cloudzero-tools-reference.md, error-handling.md, dimensions-reference.md, cost-types-reference.md) in a 'See Also' section, which is good structure. However, the main body contains far too much inline content that could be split out — the 4 common analysis patterns, advanced techniques, and the detailed output format template could all be in separate reference files. No bundle files were provided to verify references exist. | 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 | |
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Table of Contents
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