Breaks work into ordered tasks. Use when you have a spec or clear requirements and need to break work into implementable tasks. Use when a task feels too large to start, when you need to estimate scope, or when parallel work is possible.
62
72%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
—
No eval scenarios have been run
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/planning-and-task-breakdown/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
67%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 has a strong completeness score with explicit 'Use when' triggers covering multiple scenarios, which is its greatest strength. However, it lacks specificity in describing concrete actions beyond 'breaks work into ordered tasks' and could benefit from more natural trigger terms that users commonly use. The distinctiveness is moderate—it could be confused with general planning or project management skills.
Suggestions
Add more specific concrete actions, e.g., 'Creates dependency graphs, identifies parallelizable tasks, generates ordered implementation plans with time estimates'
Include additional natural trigger terms users might say, such as 'plan', 'decompose', 'subtasks', 'work breakdown structure', 'implementation plan', or 'project planning'
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | The description names the domain (task breakdown/planning) and mentions some actions like 'break work into implementable tasks' and 'estimate scope', but it doesn't list multiple concrete specific actions. It's more about the general concept than specific capabilities like 'create dependency graphs, identify parallelizable tasks, generate time estimates, produce ordered task lists'. | 2 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (breaks work into ordered tasks) and 'when' with explicit trigger conditions: when you have a spec or clear requirements, when a task feels too large, when you need to estimate scope, or when parallel work is possible. The 'Use when' clause is explicit and multi-faceted. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes some natural trigger terms like 'spec', 'requirements', 'break work into tasks', 'estimate scope', and 'parallel work'. However, it misses common variations users might say such as 'plan', 'decompose', 'subtasks', 'work breakdown', 'project planning', 'task list', or 'implementation plan'. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | While task decomposition is a somewhat specific niche, the description could overlap with general project management skills, planning skills, or even coding workflow skills. Terms like 'break work into tasks' and 'estimate scope' are moderately distinctive but not uniquely tied to a single skill domain. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
77%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This is a strong instructional skill with excellent actionability and workflow clarity — the step-by-step process, concrete templates, and verification checkpoints are well-designed. Its main weaknesses are moderate verbosity (the rationalizations table and some explanatory text add tokens without proportional value) and a monolithic structure that could benefit from splitting reference material into separate files.
Suggestions
Remove or significantly trim the 'Common Rationalizations' table — it's motivational content that doesn't add actionable guidance for Claude.
Consider extracting the full Plan Document Template and Task Structure Template into separate referenced files to reduce the main skill's token footprint.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is generally well-structured but includes some unnecessary content that Claude would already know. The 'Common Rationalizations' table is motivational rather than instructional, and sections like 'When NOT to use' and 'Red Flags' overlap with guidance already implicit in the process. The dependency graph ASCII art and examples are valuable, but the overall document could be tightened by ~30%. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | The skill provides concrete, copy-paste-ready templates for task structure, plan documents, and checkpoints. The task sizing table with specific file counts, the vertical vs horizontal slicing examples with concrete task descriptions, and the markdown templates are all immediately executable guidance. | 3 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The 5-step planning process is clearly sequenced with explicit validation checkpoints after every 2-3 tasks. The plan includes feedback loops (checkpoint → review → proceed), a final verification checklist before implementation begins, and clear ordering principles (dependencies first, high-risk early, fail fast). | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The content is well-organized with clear sections and headers, but it's a monolithic document with no references to supporting files. Given the length (~200 lines) and breadth of content (templates, examples, guidelines, anti-patterns), some content like the full plan document template or the task sizing guidelines could be split into referenced files for better token efficiency. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 10 / 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.
f17c6e8
Table of Contents
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