Generates the Methods section for a meta-analysis paper, including search strategy, screening, quality assessment, data extraction, and statistical analysis.
45
47%
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 ./scientific-skills/Academic Writing/meta-analysis-methods-generator/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 excels at specificity and distinctiveness by clearly naming the domain (meta-analysis Methods section) and listing concrete sub-tasks. However, it lacks an explicit 'Use when...' clause, which caps completeness, and could benefit from additional natural trigger terms that users might actually say when requesting this kind of help.
Suggestions
Add a 'Use when...' clause, e.g., 'Use when the user asks for help writing or drafting the Methods section of a meta-analysis or systematic review paper.'
Include additional natural trigger terms like 'systematic review', 'PRISMA', 'literature review methodology', or 'meta-analysis write-up' to improve keyword coverage.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: search strategy, screening, quality assessment, data extraction, and statistical analysis. These are well-defined components of a meta-analysis Methods section. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers 'what' (generates the Methods section with specific sub-components), but lacks an explicit 'Use when...' clause or equivalent trigger guidance for when Claude should select this skill. | 2 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes relevant terms like 'meta-analysis', 'Methods section', 'search strategy', 'screening', and 'statistical analysis', but misses common user variations like 'systematic review', 'PRISMA', 'literature review methods', or 'write methods'. Users might phrase requests differently than these technical sub-components. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly specific niche: generating the Methods section specifically for meta-analysis papers. This is unlikely to conflict with general writing skills or other academic writing skills due to the precise domain focus. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 10 / 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 suffers from severe template bloat—large portions are generic boilerplate that provide no skill-specific guidance and waste tokens. The core value (the 6-step workflow and prompt templates) is buried under redundant sections. The prompt templates are the strongest part but should be extracted into separate files, and the relationship between the referenced Python script and the actual text generation workflow is confusing.
Suggestions
Remove all generic boilerplate sections (When to Use, When Not to Use, Required Inputs, Failure Handling, Deterministic Output Rules, Completion Checklist, Validation and Safety Rules) that contain no skill-specific information—these waste significant token budget.
Extract the 6 prompt templates into separate files (e.g., prompts/search_strategy.md, prompts/quality_assessment.md) and reference them from the main SKILL.md to improve progressive disclosure.
Clarify the execution model: remove references to `scripts/validate_skill.py` if the skill is actually about Claude generating text using the prompt templates, and make the actual mechanism explicit.
Consolidate the three redundant workflow descriptions (Example Usage, Implementation Details, Workflow) into a single clear workflow section with validation checkpoints between generation steps.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | Extremely verbose with massive amounts of boilerplate and redundancy. Sections like 'When to Use', 'When Not to Use', 'Required Inputs', 'Recommended Workflow', 'Completion Checklist', 'Failure Handling', 'Deterministic Output Rules', and 'Validation and Safety Rules' are generic filler that add no skill-specific value. The same workflow is essentially described three times (Example Usage, Implementation Details, Workflow). Much of the content reads like a template that wasn't customized. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | The Workflow section provides a clear 6-step process with specific inputs for each step, and the Prompts/Templates section contains concrete prompt templates with template variables. However, the 'Example Usage' section references a `scripts/validate_skill.py` script that doesn't appear to actually generate methods sections—it seems to be a generic validation script. The actual execution mechanism (are these prompts for Claude itself? for an external LLM?) is unclear, making it only partially actionable. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The Workflow section has a clear 6-step sequence with input validation, specific sub-steps, and a compilation step. However, there are no validation checkpoints between steps (e.g., verifying each generated section meets quality criteria before proceeding), no feedback loops for error recovery, and the relationship between the workflow steps and the `validate_skill.py` script is unclear. For a content generation task, there should be review/revision checkpoints. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The skill is a monolithic wall of text at ~250+ lines with no references to external files despite having detailed prompt templates that could easily be separated. The prompt templates alone take up a huge portion of the document and would be better placed in separate files. Multiple redundant sections (three different workflow descriptions, generic boilerplate sections) make navigation difficult. No bundle files are provided to support the referenced script path. | 1 / 3 |
Total | 6 / 12 Passed |
Validation
90%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 | |
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