Conciseness

The body is lean throughout: it never explains git, diffs, or CI concepts Claude already knows, and every section (intent, classifier commands, JSON fields, dispositions, report structure) adds non-obvious, skill-specific information. It matches anchor 5 ('Lean and efficient; assumes Claude's competence; every token earns its place'); there is no padded or over-explained section that would drop it to anchor 4.

Actionability

All four invocation styles are given as complete, copy-paste-ready commands with exact flags (--repo/--staged/--base/--diff/--intent/--json), the JSON output fields are each explained with their meaning, and the keep/split/justify framework gives concrete criteria plus a compact report template. This matches anchor 5 ('Fully executable; copy-paste ready code or commands; specific examples cover the common cases').

Workflow Clarity

The workflow is a clear single-purpose sequence — establish intent (with a checkpoint: ask for intent when the branch name is generic), run the classifier, read the signals reference before recommending, assign dispositions, write the report — and it includes explicit safeguards: 'Treat the classifier as triage evidence, not proof', verify connections before split, and 'Ask before applying any split, revert, staging, or commit operation'. This is a single-task skill with an unambiguous action and validation checkpoints, matching anchor 5 rather than anchor 4, which would require some checkpoints to be missing.

Progressive Disclosure

The SKILL.md is a well-organized overview that pushes detail to a single, clearly signaled, one-level-deep reference ('Read [references/scope-signals.md](references/scope-signals.md) before making a recommendation'), and the Files section accurately lists both bundle files, which exist on disk (references/scope-signals.md, scripts/scope_creep.py). This matches anchor 5 ('Clear overview with well-signaled one-level-deep references; content appropriately split; easy navigation'); there is no inlined bulk material or nesting that would warrant anchor 4.

Specificity

The description enumerates many concrete detection targets — 'unrelated files, broad pull requests, changes that grew beyond a fix, dependency additions, public API renames, config or CI edits, oversized hunks, and formatting-only files' — plus concrete output dispositions ('keep, split, or justify guidance'). This matches the anchor 'Lists multiple specific concrete actions; comprehensive coverage' and exceeds anchor 4, which allows only several actions with minor gaps.

Completeness

It explicitly answers both questions: what it does ('Analyzes git diffs against a stated intent to detect scope creep...') and when to use it ('Use when the user asks whether a change grew beyond the fix, a PR is too broad, or what unrelated stuff they touched'). This is the anchor-5 pattern of a clear what followed by concrete trigger phrases; anchor 4 would require the 'when' to be less explicit or specific.

Trigger Term Quality

Natural user phrasings are present — 'scope creep', 'whether a change grew beyond the fix', 'a PR is too broad', 'what unrelated stuff they touched' — covering the main ways users would voice this need. It falls short of anchor 5 because common synonyms such as 'review my diff/PR', 'is this change too big', or 'refactor mixed in' are absent, matching anchor 4 ('Good keyword coverage; a few natural terms missing') rather than comprehensive synonym coverage.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

It occupies a clear niche — diff-scope analysis with keep/split/justify recommendations — distinct from correctness or security review skills, and its triggers ('too broad', 'grew beyond the fix') would not naturally fire for other skills. It matches anchor 5's 'Clear niche with distinct triggers; minimal conflict risk'; anchor 4 would imply meaningful overlap with closely related skills, which is not the case.