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using-agent-skills

Discovers and invokes agent skills. Use when starting a session or when you need to discover which skill applies to the current task. This is the meta-skill that governs how all other skills are discovered and invoked.

55

Quality

61%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

No eval scenarios have been run

SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/using-agent-skills/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

70%

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

This is a well-structured meta-skill that effectively serves as a routing layer for discovering and applying other skills. Its main strengths are the clear decision tree, lifecycle sequencing, and progressive disclosure to individual skills. Its weaknesses are moderate redundancy across three different representations of the same skill catalog (tree, lifecycle, table) and some verbosity in the core behaviors section that explains concepts Claude already understands.

Suggestions

Consolidate the three overlapping skill representations (discovery tree, lifecycle sequence, quick reference table) — pick two at most, as all three convey largely the same information and consume significant tokens.

Add concrete guidance on how to actually load/invoke a skill (e.g., file paths, exact commands like 'read skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md') rather than just naming skills abstractly.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The skill is reasonably well-structured but includes some redundancy — the lifecycle sequence, quick reference table, and skill discovery tree all convey overlapping information. The 'Core Operating Behaviors' section, while valuable, is somewhat verbose with explanations of concepts Claude likely already understands (e.g., explaining why sycophancy is bad). The 'Failure Modes to Avoid' section largely restates the core behaviors in negative form.

2 / 3

Actionability

The skill discovery flowchart is concrete and actionable for routing tasks to skills. The core operating behaviors provide good templates (e.g., the ASSUMPTIONS format). However, the skill lacks executable commands or concrete examples of how to actually invoke/load a skill — it describes the process abstractly rather than showing exact steps like 'read SKILL.md from skills/<skill-name>/'.

2 / 3

Workflow Clarity

The decision tree for skill discovery is clear and well-sequenced. The lifecycle sequence provides explicit ordering. The core behaviors include clear validation checkpoints ('verify, don't assume') and feedback loops ('STOP, name confusion, wait for resolution'). The rules about not skipping verification steps are explicit.

3 / 3

Progressive Disclosure

This is a meta-skill that serves as an overview/index pointing to 20+ individual skills, each referenced by name. The structure naturally provides progressive disclosure — quick reference table for scanning, decision tree for routing, and individual skill files for detailed workflows. Content is appropriately split between overview (here) and detail (individual skill files).

3 / 3

Total

10

/

12

Passed

Description

52%

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

This description serves a meta-level orchestration skill and does a reasonable job explaining both what it does and when to use it. However, it relies heavily on internal jargon ('meta-skill,' 'invokes,' 'session') that users would never naturally say, and its extremely broad scope ('governs how all other skills are discovered') creates significant overlap risk with every other skill in the system.

Suggestions

Replace technical jargon with natural user-facing language — users don't say 'invoke agent skills' or 'discover skills'; consider terms like 'find the right tool,' 'list available capabilities,' or 'what can you do'.

Narrow the trigger conditions to reduce conflict risk — instead of triggering on any task discovery, specify concrete scenarios like 'Use when the user asks what tools or capabilities are available, or when no other skill clearly matches the request'.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

It names the domain ('agent skills') and some actions ('discovers and invokes'), but the actions are abstract and meta-level rather than concrete, specific operations a user would recognize.

2 / 3

Completeness

It answers both 'what' (discovers and invokes agent skills, governs how other skills are discovered) and 'when' (when starting a session or when needing to discover which skill applies) with explicit trigger guidance.

3 / 3

Trigger Term Quality

The description lacks natural keywords users would actually say. Terms like 'discovers,' 'invokes,' 'meta-skill,' and 'session' are internal/technical jargon, not phrases a user would naturally use when needing this functionality.

1 / 3

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

As a meta-skill about discovering other skills, it has a somewhat unique niche, but the broad scope ('governs how all other skills are discovered and invoked') means it could potentially trigger for nearly any request, creating conflict with more specific skills.

2 / 3

Total

8

/

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.

Validation11 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository
addyosmani/agent-skills
Reviewed

Table of Contents

Is this your skill?

If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.