sdd-explore

Explore and investigate ideas before committing to a change. Trigger: When the orchestrator launches you to think through a feature, investigate the codebase, or clarify requirements.

Quality

33%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

Pending

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/sdd-explore/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

17%

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

This description is too vague and abstract to be useful for skill selection. It describes a general thinking/exploration activity without specifying concrete actions, outputs, or domains. The trigger clause references an internal orchestrator mechanism rather than natural user language, making it poorly suited for disambiguation among multiple skills.

Suggestions

Replace vague phrases like 'explore and investigate ideas' with specific concrete actions (e.g., 'Traces code paths, maps dependencies, identifies affected files, and summarizes findings in a structured report').

Add natural user-facing trigger terms that a user would actually say, such as 'investigate how X works', 'understand the codebase', 'research before implementing', 'spike', 'feasibility analysis'.

Define a clear niche to distinguish this from other skills—specify what kind of exploration (e.g., architecture investigation vs. requirements gathering) and what outputs are produced.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description uses vague language like 'explore and investigate ideas' and 'think through a feature' without listing any concrete actions. There are no specific capabilities described—no mention of what tools, outputs, or methods are used.	1 / 3
Completeness	It has a vague 'what' (explore ideas, investigate codebase) and a 'when' clause ('When the orchestrator launches you...'), but the 'when' is about an internal orchestration trigger rather than explicit user-facing triggers. The 'what' is too abstract to be useful.	2 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	The trigger terms are abstract and internal-facing ('orchestrator launches you', 'think through a feature', 'clarify requirements'). These are not natural keywords a user would say; they describe an internal system mechanism rather than user-facing language.	1 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The description is extremely generic—'explore ideas', 'investigate the codebase', and 'clarify requirements' could overlap with virtually any coding, planning, or analysis skill. There is no clear niche or distinct trigger.	1 / 3
	Total	5 / 12 Passed

Implementation

50%

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 reasonable framework for codebase exploration with a clear output template and step sequence. Its main weaknesses are the heavy reliance on external shared files without summarizing their key points, the lack of concrete executable guidance (no tool calls or specific commands), and missing validation checkpoints in the workflow. The output format template is a strength, giving Claude a clear deliverable structure.

Suggestions

Add concrete tool usage examples (e.g., specific file search commands, grep patterns, or tool calls) in Step 3 instead of only listing abstract investigation categories.

Inline brief summaries of what Sections A-D from sdd-phase-common.md require, so the skill is more self-contained and Claude doesn't need to load multiple files to understand the workflow.

Add a validation checkpoint after Step 3 (e.g., 'Verify you've read at least N relevant files and can describe the current architecture before proceeding to analysis') to ensure sufficient investigation before committing to recommendations.

Consolidate the persistence/retrieval instructions — the engram/openspec/hybrid/none modes are explained twice (in 'What You Receive' context and 'Retrieving Context') and could be a single reference table.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The skill is moderately efficient but includes some redundancy — the persistence/retrieval instructions repeat references to shared docs multiple times across sections, and some steps (like 'Understand the Request') explain things Claude can infer. The ASCII tree in Step 3 adds visual clarity but the overall content could be tightened.	2 / 3
Actionability	The skill provides a structured output template and a comparison table format, which are concrete. However, the actual investigation steps are descriptive rather than executable — there are no specific commands, tool calls, or code examples. Much of the actionable detail is deferred to shared files (sdd-phase-common.md sections A-D) rather than being present in the skill itself.	2 / 3
Workflow Clarity	Steps are clearly numbered and sequenced (1-6), and the persistence step is marked as mandatory. However, there are no explicit validation checkpoints — no step to verify that the codebase investigation was sufficient, no feedback loop if the analysis is incomplete, and no verification that the artifact was successfully persisted.	2 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	The skill references shared files (sdd-phase-common.md, openspec-convention.md) for detailed conventions, which is good progressive disclosure. However, the references are scattered throughout multiple sections rather than consolidated, and it's unclear what Sections A-D contain without reading those files, making navigation harder.	2 / 3
	Total	8 / 12 Passed

Validation

100%

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 — 11 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository: Gentleman-Programming/agent-teams-lite
Commit: 6901875

Reviewed: 8 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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