lay-summary-gen

Converts complex medical abstracts into plain language summaries for.

Quality

30%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

Pending

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./scientific-skills/Academic Writing/lay-summary-gen/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

32%

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 identifies a clear domain (medical abstracts) and action (plain language conversion), but appears truncated and incomplete. It lacks explicit trigger guidance ('Use when...') and misses natural keywords users would say when needing this skill. The incomplete sentence ending with 'for.' significantly undermines the description's effectiveness.

Suggestions

Complete the truncated sentence and add a 'Use when...' clause with triggers like 'when users ask to simplify medical research, explain abstracts, or translate scientific findings into layman's terms'

Add natural trigger terms users would say: 'simplify', 'explain in plain English', 'layman's terms', 'research paper summary', 'medical jargon'

Expand specific capabilities: mention handling of technical terminology, statistical findings, clinical implications, or specific medical document types

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Names the domain (medical abstracts) and one action (converts to plain language summaries), but the description appears truncated ('for.' ends abruptly) and doesn't list comprehensive actions.	2 / 3
Completeness	Describes what it does (converts medical abstracts) but has no 'Use when...' clause or explicit trigger guidance. The description also appears incomplete/truncated, ending with 'for.' which suggests missing content.	1 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	Includes some relevant terms like 'medical abstracts' and 'plain language summaries', but missing common variations users might say like 'simplify', 'explain', 'layman's terms', 'research paper', or 'ELI5'.	2 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The medical domain provides some specificity, but 'plain language summaries' could overlap with general summarization or translation skills. The truncated ending reduces clarity about its distinct niche.	2 / 3
	Total	7 / 12 Passed

Implementation

27%

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

This skill is heavily padded with generic boilerplate (security checklists, risk assessments, lifecycle status) that doesn't help Claude generate lay summaries. The actual domain-specific guidance for converting medical abstracts to plain language is minimal - there are no examples of input abstracts and their corresponding lay summaries, no specific strategies for jargon replacement, and no concrete transformation logic. The document prioritizes process documentation over actionable instruction.

Suggestions

Remove boilerplate sections (Risk Assessment, Security Checklist, Lifecycle Status, Evaluation Criteria) that don't provide actionable guidance for the summarization task

Add 2-3 concrete examples showing a medical abstract input and the expected lay summary output with jargon replacements highlighted

Include specific strategies for achieving Grade 6-8 reading level (e.g., sentence length limits, passive voice avoidance, specific jargon-to-plain mappings for common medical terms)

Fix circular references ('See ## Features above' when Features is below) and consolidate the multiple redundant workflow sections into one clear sequence

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	Extremely verbose with excessive boilerplate, redundant sections (e.g., 'See ## Features above' when Features is below), and unnecessary meta-content like Risk Assessment tables, Security Checklists, and Lifecycle Status that don't help Claude perform the actual task of generating lay summaries.	1 / 3
Actionability	Provides input/output schema and some concrete structure, but lacks actual executable code or examples showing how to transform a medical abstract into a lay summary. The 'scripts/main.py' is referenced but no actual transformation logic or prompting strategy is shown.	2 / 3
Workflow Clarity	Multiple workflow sections exist but are generic and repetitive rather than specific to lay summary generation. Missing concrete validation steps for the actual output quality (e.g., how to verify reading level, how to check jargon replacement completeness).	2 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	Monolithic document with poor organization - sections reference each other circularly ('See ## Features above' when Features is actually below), contains excessive inline content that should be separate or omitted entirely, and lacks clear navigation to any referenced files.	1 / 3
	Total	6 / 12 Passed

Validation

90%

Warnings & errors only

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 10 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	10 / 11 Passed

Repository: aipoch/medical-research-skills
Commit: 4a48721

Reviewed: about 14 hours ago

Table of Contents

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