Guide for creating effective skills. This skill should be used when users want to create a new skill (or update an existing skill) that extends Claude's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, or tool integrations.
68
52%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
98%
1.42xAverage score across 3 eval scenarios
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./data/skills-md/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/skill-creator/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
57%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 succeeds at providing explicit 'when to use' guidance but falls short on specificity of what the skill actually does. It reads more like a high-level summary than a concrete capability listing. The trigger terms are adequate but could be expanded with more natural user phrasings.
Suggestions
Replace the vague 'Guide for creating effective skills' with specific actions like 'Generates skill files with YAML frontmatter, writes markdown instructions, validates skill structure and format'.
Add more natural trigger term variations such as 'SKILL.md', 'skill file', 'skill template', 'write a skill', or 'define a new capability'.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | The description says 'creating effective skills' and 'extends Claude's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, or tool integrations' but doesn't list concrete actions like 'generates YAML frontmatter, writes markdown instructions, validates skill structure.' The language is abstract and vague about what the skill actually does. | 1 / 3 |
Completeness | The description answers both 'what' (guide for creating effective skills that extend Claude's capabilities) and 'when' ('should be used when users want to create a new skill or update an existing skill'). The 'when' clause is explicit with clear triggers. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Contains some relevant trigger terms like 'create a new skill', 'update an existing skill', and 'skill' itself. However, it misses natural variations users might say such as 'SKILL.md', 'skill file', 'write a skill', 'skill template', or 'skill format'. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | The term 'skill' is fairly specific to this domain, but the description's vagueness about what it actually does ('specialized knowledge, workflows, or tool integrations') could overlap with general documentation or template-creation skills. It's somewhat distinguishable but not sharply defined. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 8 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
47%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill has a well-structured workflow for creating skills (Steps 1-6) with clear sequencing and validation, but it is significantly too verbose for its purpose. It spends substantial tokens explaining concepts Claude already understands (what skills are, what directories do, general software engineering principles) and includes extensive conceptual material that should either be trimmed or moved to reference files. The irony is that a skill about creating concise skills is itself not concise.
Suggestions
Drastically reduce the 'About Skills' and 'Core Principles' sections—move detailed explanations and examples of progressive disclosure patterns, degrees of freedom, and skill anatomy into a references/ file, keeping only a brief summary and link in SKILL.md.
Remove explanations of concepts Claude already knows (e.g., what PDFs are, what scripts/references/assets directories are for, what progressive disclosure means) and replace with terse, actionable directives.
Add concrete, executable examples for the 'Edit the Skill' step—e.g., a complete minimal SKILL.md example showing frontmatter + body that Claude can use as a template, rather than abstract writing guidelines.
Practice what the skill preaches: keep SKILL.md under 200 lines with essential workflow steps and move the detailed patterns, examples, and guidelines into references/ files.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is extremely verbose at ~400+ lines, explaining many concepts Claude already knows (what skills are, what PDFs are, what scripts/references/assets directories do). Extensive sections like 'What Skills Provide', 'About Skills', and detailed explanations of directory structures are largely unnecessary for Claude. Much of this reads like user-facing documentation rather than lean agent instructions. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | The skill provides some concrete guidance (init_skill.py and package_skill.py commands with usage examples), but much of the content is conceptual rather than executable. The 'Edit the Skill' section is largely abstract advice rather than specific, copy-paste-ready instructions. The examples shown are illustrative directory structures rather than executable code. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The 6-step skill creation process is clearly sequenced with explicit steps (Understand → Plan → Initialize → Edit → Package → Iterate). Each step has clear entry/exit criteria (e.g., 'Skip this step only when...', 'Conclude this step when...'). The packaging step includes validation with error recovery (fix errors and run again). The workflow is well-structured for a multi-step process. | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The skill references external files (references/workflows.md, references/output-patterns.md) and external URLs, which is good. However, the SKILL.md itself is bloated with content that should be in reference files—the extensive 'About Skills', 'Core Principles', and 'Progressive Disclosure Design Principle' sections with multiple examples could be moved to references. The skill teaches progressive disclosure but doesn't fully practice it. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 8 / 12 Passed |
Validation
100%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.
9f4534c
Table of Contents
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