base

Universal coding patterns, constraints, TDD workflow, atomic todos

Quality

31%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

—

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Risky

Do not use without reviewing

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/base/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

14%

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 is a comma-separated list of abstract nouns with no verbs, no actions, and no usage triggers. It fails to communicate what the skill does or when Claude should select it, and its generic terms would conflict with many other coding-related skills.

Suggestions

Rewrite using concrete action verbs describing what the skill does, e.g., 'Enforces coding conventions, generates test-first development workflows, and breaks tasks into atomic todo items.'

Add an explicit 'Use when...' clause with natural trigger terms, e.g., 'Use when the user asks about TDD, test-driven development, coding standards, task decomposition, or writing incremental todos.'

Narrow the scope to reduce conflict risk — 'universal coding patterns' is too broad; specify which patterns or languages are covered.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description lists abstract concepts ('coding patterns', 'constraints', 'TDD workflow', 'atomic todos') without describing any concrete actions. There are no verbs indicating what the skill actually does.	1 / 3
Completeness	The description barely addresses 'what' (just listing nouns without actions) and completely lacks any 'when' guidance. There is no 'Use when...' clause or equivalent trigger guidance.	1 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	Terms like 'TDD' and 'coding patterns' are somewhat relevant keywords a user might mention, but they are broad and missing common variations (e.g., 'test-driven development', 'unit tests', 'refactoring', 'todo list'). 'Constraints' is overly generic.	2 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	'Universal coding patterns' and 'constraints' are extremely generic and would overlap with virtually any coding-related skill. The description lacks a clear niche.	1 / 3
	Total	5 / 12 Passed

Implementation

47%

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

This skill is comprehensive in scope but suffers significantly from verbosity—it tries to be an entire software engineering handbook rather than a focused skill document. The workflow clarity is its strongest dimension with well-defined TDD phases and validation checkpoints. However, the extensive inline templates, well-known engineering principles, and repeated structural patterns inflate the token cost substantially without adding proportional value for an AI that already understands these concepts.

Suggestions

Cut the Architectural Patterns, Testing Philosophy, and Anti-Patterns sections to brief bullet lists or remove entirely—Claude already knows these software engineering fundamentals.

Move the detailed todo format templates, bug fix templates, and stack-specific commands into separate referenced files (e.g., todo-format.md, tdd-commands.md) to reduce the main file to under 100 lines.

Remove the ASCII box diagrams for TDD workflows and replace with compact numbered lists—the visual formatting adds tokens without improving clarity for an AI reader.

Consolidate the three stack-specific command blocks into a single table or move to a referenced file, since the pattern is identical across stacks.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	This skill is extremely verbose at ~350+ lines. It explains many concepts Claude already knows (TDD workflow, what pure functions are, composition over inheritance, error handling basics). The anti-patterns list, testing philosophy, and architectural patterns sections are largely restating well-known software engineering principles. The todo format templates and bug fix workflows are excessively detailed with ASCII box diagrams and repeated table structures.	1 / 3
Actionability	The skill provides concrete executable commands for different stacks (Node.js, Python, React) and specific file violation warning formats. However, much of the content is prescriptive rules rather than actionable instructions—it tells Claude what principles to follow rather than giving copy-paste-ready implementations. The todo templates and directory structures are concrete but are more documentation formats than executable guidance.	2 / 3
Workflow Clarity	The TDD workflow is clearly sequenced with explicit RED → GREEN → VALIDATE → COMPLETE phases, each with specific commands and validation checkpoints. The bug fix workflow similarly has clear DIAGNOSE → RED → GREEN → VALIDATE steps. Blocking conditions are explicitly enumerated, and feedback loops (fix and re-validate) are well-defined. The enforcement protocol for file size limits includes explicit stop-and-fix steps.	3 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	The skill references external files (credentials.md, security.md, session-management.md, iterative-development skill) which is good progressive disclosure, but the main SKILL.md itself is monolithic with enormous inline content that should be split out. The todo format templates, bug fix templates, and stack-specific commands could easily live in referenced files. No bundle files are provided to verify the referenced paths exist.	2 / 3
	Total	8 / 12 Passed

Validation

81%

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 — 9 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
skill_md_line_count	SKILL.md is long (526 lines); consider splitting into references/ and linking	Warning
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	9 / 11 Passed

Repository: alinaqi/claude-bootstrap
Commit: 7e5f7a2

Reviewed: 3 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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.