Conciseness

The body is dense and judgment-laden ("Microservices require justification by real constraints... a 3-person team cannot run 12 services"; "a justification that could be pasted into any project's plan... is not a justification") with no padding explaining concepts Claude already knows. It is not 5 because sections like the seven judgment principles and the Routing Boundary (which largely repeats the frontmatter's do-not-use list) could each be tightened without losing content.

Actionability

Guidance is copy-paste concrete for an instruction-only skill: an exact 18-section output template, an ordered Phase 2 decision sequence, a capped intake-question protocol ("ask up to 5 focused questions"), a specified assumption format ("number the assumptions (A1, A2, ...) in a table... reference them by id"), per-decision reference pointers, and a worked example of expected behavior. Per the rubric's code-vs-instruction note, the absence of code is not penalized; the guidance is fully executable as written.

Workflow Clarity

Five phases are explicitly ordered and scoped ("Phases 1–2 are thinking; 3–5 fill in the plan"), each phase has a defined output, and validation checkpoints are explicit: the ask-before-assuming loop with numbered assumptions and open-question-to-decision mapping, plus a final checklist enforced as a quality gate ("an unchecked box with a reason beats a dishonest tick"). This matches anchor 5's clear sequence with explicit validation and a checklist for a complex process.

Progressive Disclosure

The body stays an overview with well-signaled, one-level-deep references — inline at point of need ("Use the decision framework in `references/styles.md`") plus a "Read | When the engagement involves" reference map — and all 7 referenced `references/*.md` files exist in the bundle. It is not 5 because the 9 linked `shared/base/*.md` policy paths and `shared/workflow-contract.md` do not exist anywhere in the provided bundle, leaving dangling reference targets.

Specificity

Concrete scope is stated — "Plan the future architecture of a new or materially changing system before implementation" with deliverable coverage of "components, data, APIs, deployment, and delivery trade-offs" — but the action set centers on a single planning verb rather than several distinct concrete actions, so it sits noticeably above anchor 3 without fully matching anchor 5's multiple discrete actions.

Completeness

The "what" is explicit ("Plan the future architecture of a new or materially changing system before implementation") and the "when" is an explicit trigger clause ("Use for greenfield products, planned platform changes, and technical blueprints..."), further reinforced with negative triggers ("Do not use to audit an existing repository, review a PR, or diagnose an incident"). It is not below 5 because nothing in the when-clause is implicit or generic.

Trigger Term Quality

Natural user phrasings are present — "greenfield products", "planned platform changes", "technical blueprints", "architecture" — that a user planning a system would plausibly say; a few common synonyms ("design a new system", "system design", "tech stack decisions") are missing, keeping it below anchor 5's comprehensive synonym coverage.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

A clear niche — forward-looking, pre-implementation planning — is staked out, and the do-not-use list explicitly fences off adjacent skills (repo audit, PR review, incident diagnosis), giving minimal conflict risk. It fits anchor 5's "clear niche with distinct triggers" exactly.