writing-clearly-and-concisely
Apply Strunk's timeless writing rules to ANY prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Makes your writing clearer, stronger, and more professional.
68
53%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
94%
1.02xAverage score across 3 eval scenarios
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./tests/ext_conformance/artifacts/agents-mikeastock/skills/writing-clearly-and-concisely/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
50%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 communicates the general purpose—applying Strunk-style writing principles to various prose types—but lacks concrete action verbs describing what transformations it performs and has no explicit 'Use when...' trigger clause. The use of second person ('Makes your writing') is a minor voice issue, and the broad scope risks overlap with other writing or editing skills.
Suggestions
Add an explicit 'Use when...' clause, e.g., 'Use when the user asks to improve, tighten, or edit prose, or mentions writing clarity, conciseness, or Strunk & White.'
Replace vague outcome language ('clearer, stronger, more professional') with specific actions like 'eliminates unnecessary words, enforces active voice, simplifies sentence structure, removes hedging language.'
Switch from second person ('Makes your writing') to third person ('Makes prose clearer') to align with expected voice conventions.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | It names the domain (writing/prose improvement) and lists several content types (documentation, commit messages, error messages, etc.), but the actual actions are vague—'makes your writing clearer, stronger, and more professional' is aspirational rather than describing concrete actions like 'removes unnecessary words, enforces active voice, simplifies sentence structure.' | 2 / 3 |
Completeness | The 'what' is partially addressed (apply Strunk's writing rules to prose), but there is no explicit 'Use when...' clause or equivalent trigger guidance. The list of content types implies when to use it, but this is not an explicit trigger statement, which per the rubric caps completeness at 2. | 2 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes some useful trigger terms like 'documentation', 'commit messages', 'error messages', 'UI text', and 'writing', but misses natural user phrases like 'edit my writing', 'improve prose', 'writing style', 'concise', 'wordiness', or 'Strunk and White'. The term 'Strunk' alone may not be what users naturally say. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | The reference to 'Strunk's timeless writing rules' provides some distinctiveness, but the broad scope ('ANY prose humans will read') and terms like 'documentation' and 'writing' could easily overlap with general editing, documentation, or style guide skills. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 8 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
57%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill has strong progressive disclosure with a well-structured overview that appropriately defers detail to a companion file. However, it lacks concrete examples of rule application (before/after transformations) and the actionability suffers from listing rules as titles without showing how to apply them. The content has some redundancy that could be trimmed.
Suggestions
Add 2-3 before/after examples showing rules being applied (e.g., passive→active, wordy→concise) to make the skill actionable without loading the full reference file.
Provide the actual subagent dispatch syntax/command rather than describing it abstractly in the Limited Context Strategy section.
Remove the redundant 'Bottom Line' section and the bold restatement in 'When to Use This Skill'—the overview already conveys this.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | Mostly efficient but has some redundancy—the 'When to Use This Skill' section over-explains with a bullet list of obvious contexts plus a bold summary that restates the same idea. The 'Bottom Line' section also repeats what was already said in the overview and limited context strategy sections. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | The subagent dispatch strategy is a concrete workflow, and the rule list provides a useful reference. However, there are no concrete examples of applying the rules (e.g., before/after rewrites), no specific subagent invocation syntax, and the rules are listed as titles without actionable guidance on how to apply them. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The limited context strategy provides a clear 3-step sequence, but lacks validation—there's no step to verify the revision meets quality standards or to iterate. The main workflow (read the file, apply rules) is implicit rather than explicitly sequenced. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | Excellent progressive disclosure: the SKILL.md serves as a concise overview with a clear one-level-deep reference to `elements-of-style.md`, includes a token cost warning, and provides a summary of all rules so Claude can decide whether to load the full reference. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 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 |
|---|---|---|
metadata_version | 'metadata.version' is missing | Warning |
Total | 10 / 11 Passed | |
- Repository
- Dicklesworthstone/pi_agent_rust
- Commit
6e3d68c
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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