Conciseness

The body is lean throughout: no explanations of concepts Claude already knows, and each line carries guidance (e.g., 'An empty signal list means the messages do not say why. It does not mean the change had no reason' adds interpretation value rather than padding), fitting the 'every token earns its place' anchor.

Actionability

The commands are copy-paste ready and verified against the script's actual CLI ('python3 scripts/archaeologist.py /path/to/repo src/cache.py --lines 40-72 --json', plus the no-range variant), and the report structure with confidence labels is fully executable guidance.

Workflow Clarity

The sequence (gather target, run dig, read reference, interpret JSON, write report, offer follow-up) is clearly ordered with explicit feedback loops: ask only for missing paths, and 'If it rejects a path or range, report that error and ask for a corrected target', plus confidence labels as an output checkpoint. The operation is read-only, so the destructive/batch cap does not apply.

Progressive Disclosure

A well-sectioned overview points to a single one-level-deep reference that is clearly signaled with a reason to read it ('Before interpreting the JSON, read references/reading-git-history.md'), and a Files section indexes both bundle files, both of which exist on disk.

Specificity

The description lists multiple concrete capabilities — 'the introducing commit, later changes, current authors, repeated companion files, and likely intent' — giving comprehensive coverage of the skill's outputs in third person, matching the top anchor rather than the 'minor gaps' of a 4.

Completeness

It explicitly answers both questions: the 'what' is the full capability list ('Reconstructs why code exists from local git history, including...') and the 'when' is a concrete 'Use when...' clause with quoted trigger phrases, mirroring the anchor-5 example structure.

Trigger Term Quality

Quoted phrases like "why does this code exist", "who wrote this function and why", and "explain the history of this function" plus 'rewrite, refactor, or risky edit' give good natural keyword coverage, but common synonyms such as 'git blame' or 'when was this code added' are absent, so it does not reach the comprehensive-synonyms anchor of 5.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The niche (reconstructing why code exists from git history) is distinct and the triggers are user phrases unlikely to fire for related skills like commit-message generation or code review, so conflict risk is minimal.