base
Universal coding patterns, constraints, TDD workflow, atomic todos
49
38%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
Pending
No eval scenarios have been run
Risky
Do not use without reviewing
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/base/SKILL.mdQuality
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 topics with no concrete actions, no explicit trigger guidance, and highly generic language. It fails to communicate what the skill does or when it should be selected, making it nearly indistinguishable from any general coding skill.
Suggestions
Replace the topic list with concrete action verbs describing what the skill does, e.g., 'Enforces coding constraints, generates TDD test scaffolds, 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 test-driven development, coding standards, task decomposition, or writing unit tests before implementation.'
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') but does not describe any concrete actions. There are no verbs indicating what the skill actually does. | 1 / 3 |
Completeness | The description weakly addresses 'what' (listing topics rather than actions) and completely omits 'when' — there is no 'Use when...' clause or any explicit trigger guidance. | 1 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Terms like 'TDD', 'coding patterns', and 'atomic todos' are somewhat relevant keywords a user might mention, but they are broad and missing common variations (e.g., 'test-driven development', 'unit testing', 'task breakdown', 'code style'). | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | 'Universal coding patterns' and 'constraints' are extremely generic and would overlap with virtually any coding-related skill. Nothing narrows the scope to a clear niche. | 1 / 3 |
Total | 5 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
62%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill is highly actionable with excellent workflow clarity, providing concrete commands, templates, and validation checkpoints across multiple development stacks. However, it is severely bloated — much of the content (architectural patterns, testing philosophy, anti-patterns) restates well-known software engineering principles that Claude already knows, consuming significant token budget. The inline todo/bug templates and ASCII diagrams add substantial length that could be offloaded to referenced files.
Suggestions
Remove or drastically condense sections that restate common knowledge: 'Architectural Patterns', 'Testing Philosophy', and 'Anti-Patterns' sections could each be reduced to 2-3 lines of project-specific constraints rather than general software engineering principles.
Move the detailed todo format template, bug report template, and TDD execution log examples into a separate referenced file (e.g., `todo-templates.md`) and keep only a brief summary with a link in the main skill.
Consolidate the stack-specific execution commands into a referenced file (e.g., `tdd-commands.md`) since they follow identical patterns across stacks and add ~30 lines of near-duplicate content.
Remove the ASCII box diagrams for TDD and bug fix workflows — numbered lists convey the same information in fewer tokens.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | This skill is extremely verbose at ~350+ lines. It explains many concepts Claude already knows (TDD workflow, composition over inheritance, error handling philosophy, what pure functions are). 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. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | The skill provides highly concrete, executable guidance: specific line/function limits with exact numbers, copy-paste ready bash commands for multiple stacks (Node, Python, React), complete markdown templates for todos and bug reports, specific key patterns for credential detection, and exact file paths for project structure. | 3 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | Multi-step workflows are clearly sequenced with explicit validation checkpoints throughout. The TDD workflow has clear RED→GREEN→VALIDATE→COMPLETE phases with blocking conditions. The enforcement protocol has explicit stop-and-fix steps. Bug fix workflow includes diagnosis, test gap analysis, and full regression validation. The credential workflow has clear sequential steps. | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The skill references external files appropriately (credentials.md, security.md, session-management.md, iterative-development skill) which is good progressive disclosure. However, the main file itself is a monolithic wall of content that could benefit from splitting — the todo format templates, bug fix workflows, and stack-specific commands could easily be in separate referenced files rather than inline. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 12 Passed |
Validation
81%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
d4ddb03
- Reviewed
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