Conciseness

The body is table- and formula-driven with little concept re-teaching, but has minor trimmable redundancy: the ~85-90% accuracy disclaimer appears both in the Step 3 template ("Precision: heuristic estimate ~85-90% accuracy (±15%)") and again in the "## Precision note" section, and the Step 4 table partly repeats the Step 3 level descriptions. This matches the 4-anchor (minor instances of over-explanation that could be trimmed) rather than the 5-anchor.

Actionability

Guidance is fully executable for an instruction-only skill: concrete estimation formulas ("prose: words × 1.3", "code-heavy or mixed/code blocks: chars / 4"), a complexity multiplier table, exact per-level token formulas ("25% → min + (max - min) × 0.25"), a copy-presentable option block, and a shortcut mapping table. No gaps — matches the 5-anchor.

Workflow Clarity

Steps 1-4 are clearly sequenced (estimate input → classify and compute window → present options → respond at chosen level) with explicit branch handling via the Shortcuts table and the session-persistence rule ("maintain it silently for subsequent responses unless they change it"). No destructive or batch operations, so no validation checkpoint is applicable; the sequence is unambiguous — matches the 5-anchor.

Progressive Disclosure

Sections are well-organized and the single external reference ([context-budget](../context-budget/SKILL.md)) is one level deep and clearly signaled. However, at ~120 lines the skill exceeds the simple-skill (<50 line) exception, and content such as the trigger/shortcut examples could arguably live in a separate reference file — minor organization gaps matching the 4-anchor rather than the 5-anchor's clean split.

Specificity

The description names several concrete actions — "Offer a choice of response depth (25%/50%/75%/100%) with token estimates before answering, then answer at that level" — which goes beyond the 1-2 actions of the 3-anchor, but it lacks the comprehensive multi-action coverage of the 5-anchor.

Completeness

It clearly and explicitly answers both what ("Offer a choice of response depth (25%/50%/75%/100%) with token estimates before answering, then answer at that level") and when ("Use when the user asks to control response length or token budget, such as 'token budget', 'short version', 'brief answer'...") with concrete trigger phrases, plus an explicit skip clause — a direct match to the 5-anchor.

Trigger Term Quality

Strong natural keyword coverage including multilingual synonyms ("token budget", "short version", "brief answer", "respuesta corta vs larga", "dame la versión corta", "quiero controlar cuánto usas"), but common English variants like "tldr", "keep it short", or "exhaustive" are absent, leaving a few natural terms missing.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The skip clause ("Skip if depth is already set this session or 'token' means an auth/payment token") shows careful disambiguation, but the 'token budget' trigger phrase still carries minor overlap risk with context/token-management skills, so it sits just below the 5-anchor's minimal conflict risk.