Conciseness

Every line carries non-obvious, project-specific information Claude could not infer: conflict semantics on rerun ("exit 1 instead of overwriting"), UNVERIFIED causes, "Terraform's plugin cache is not safe for concurrent use", and the Windows checkov.cmd PATH quirk. No space is spent explaining concepts Claude already knows; there is no padding to trim.

Actionability

Fully executable, copy-paste-ready commands with flags and arguments for every operation (apply_harness.py install, check.py runs, baseline.py record with --owner/--reason/--expires, verify_deployment.py verify with --profile/--expect-account/--expect-region), plus exit codes (0/1/2, 0/1/2/3) and a concrete HCL suppression example. The common cases are covered; the only ellipsis is on the secondary `residue` subcommand, which is a minor gap that does not rise to anchor 4's "minor gaps".

Workflow Clarity

Sequences are explicit with validation checkpoints and error-recovery loops throughout: install reports conflicts with merge/rerun instructions; check distinguishes PASS/FAIL/UNVERIFIED with remedies for each UNVERIFIED cause; verification runs target check first ("exit 3 before any request"), and "logs not in yet: rerun, do not report a pass" is an explicit feedback loop. The "Before telling the user the workflows are ready, go through the administrator checklist" step gates declaring success on validation — matching the anchor-5 pattern of explicit validation, feedback loops, and checklists.

Progressive Disclosure

The body is a lean overview with two well-signaled, one-level-deep references ("references/coverage.md" for coverage rationale, "references/deployment-workflows.md" for the administrator checklist), both of which exist and contain no further nested references. Detail is appropriately split out (coverage rationale, admin checklist) while daily-use commands stay inline; scripts are invoked by concrete path. Easy to navigate across its seven focused sections.

Specificity

The description enumerates multiple concrete capabilities: "installing or updating the harness (fmt, validate, TFLint, Checkov with graph policies, mocked terraform tests)", "recording legacy findings in a baseline", "adding the reference GitHub Actions plan/approve/apply workflow with plan provenance", and "verifying a deployed Lambda/API against the checkout" — comprehensive coverage of what the skill does.

Completeness

It explicitly answers both questions: an explicit "Use when a Terraform-on-AWS repository needs checks..." trigger clause with concrete triggering scenarios, and a clear statement of what the skill does, plus a negative boundary ("Not for writing new infrastructure from scratch (use creating-aws-projects)"). Clearly the anchor-5 example pattern.

Trigger Term Quality

Good natural keyword coverage — "Terraform", "AWS", "TFLint", "Checkov", "GitHub Actions", "Lambda" are terms users would actually say — but common synonyms like "CI", "linting", "infrastructure as code", or ".tf" are missing, and phrases like "plan provenance" and "graph policies" are jargon rather than user-spoken triggers. This fits anchor 4 (good coverage, a few natural terms missing) better than 5 (comprehensive synonyms/extensions) or 3 (missing common variations).

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

A clear niche — enforcing harness checks on an existing Terraform-on-AWS repository — with an explicit disambiguation pointing "writing new infrastructure from scratch" to a different skill. Minimal conflict risk with other skills.