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skill-development

This skill should be used when the user wants to "create a skill", "add a skill to plugin", "write a new skill", "improve skill description", "organize skill content", or needs guidance on skill structure, progressive disclosure, or skill development best practices for Claude Code plugins.

65

1.60x
Quality

49%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

93%

1.60x

Average score across 3 eval scenarios

SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./plugins/plugin-dev/skills/skill-development/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Discovery

72%

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 providing trigger terms and establishing a clear niche for skill creation in Claude Code plugins, making it easy to match to user requests. However, it is weak on describing what the skill actually does — it reads more like a list of when-to-use triggers than a capability description. Adding concrete actions (e.g., 'Generates skill markdown files with proper YAML frontmatter, structures content with progressive disclosure') would significantly improve it.

Suggestions

Add explicit capability statements describing what the skill produces, e.g., 'Generates skill markdown files with YAML frontmatter, structures skill content using progressive disclosure patterns, and validates skill descriptions for clarity.'

Rewrite to lead with concrete actions in third person voice (e.g., 'Creates and improves skill files for Claude Code plugins') before listing trigger scenarios.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description names the domain (skill creation for Claude Code plugins) and mentions some actions like 'create a skill', 'improve skill description', 'organize skill content', but it doesn't list concrete specific actions the skill performs — it mostly lists trigger phrases rather than capabilities.

2 / 3

Completeness

The description addresses 'when' quite well with explicit trigger phrases and scenarios, but the 'what does this do' part is weak — it doesn't clearly describe what concrete actions or outputs the skill produces (e.g., generates markdown files, creates YAML frontmatter, validates skill format). The 'what' is only implied through the trigger terms.

2 / 3

Trigger Term Quality

The description includes multiple natural trigger phrases users would actually say: 'create a skill', 'add a skill to plugin', 'write a new skill', 'improve skill description', 'organize skill content', plus domain terms like 'progressive disclosure', 'skill structure', and 'skill development best practices'.

3 / 3

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The description targets a very specific niche — skill creation and management for Claude Code plugins — which is unlikely to conflict with other skills. The trigger terms are distinctive and domain-specific.

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 is deeply ironic: it teaches progressive disclosure and conciseness while being a monolithic, repetitive document that violates nearly every principle it advocates. The same concepts (third-person descriptions, imperative writing, progressive disclosure, lean SKILL.md) are repeated across 4-6 different sections. While the step-by-step workflow is reasonable and some examples are concrete, the skill would benefit enormously from practicing what it preaches—moving detailed patterns, common mistakes, and validation checklists into reference files.

Suggestions

Practice progressive disclosure: move 'Common Mistakes to Avoid', 'Writing Style Requirements', 'Validation Checklist', and 'Quick Reference' sections into references/ files, reducing SKILL.md to ~1,500-2,000 words as the skill itself recommends.

Eliminate redundancy: the advice about third-person descriptions, imperative form, and progressive disclosure appears in at least 4 separate sections—consolidate into a single authoritative location.

Add concrete validation commands or a validation script rather than just a manual checklist—e.g., a script that checks word count, frontmatter format, and writing style.

Provide the referenced `references/skill-creator-original.md` bundle file, or remove the reference if it doesn't exist.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

At roughly 3,000+ words, this skill is extremely verbose and repetitive. It explains concepts Claude already knows (what a PDF is, what scripts are, what progressive disclosure means), repeats the same advice multiple times (writing style requirements appear in at least 3 separate sections), and includes extensive 'bad vs good' examples that belabor obvious points. The same information about third-person descriptions, imperative form, and progressive disclosure is restated across multiple sections (Step 4, Writing Style Requirements, Common Mistakes, Best Practices Summary, Validation Checklist).

1 / 3

Actionability

The skill provides some concrete guidance like directory structure commands and YAML frontmatter examples, but much of the content is meta-guidance about how to write skills rather than executable code. The mkdir commands and YAML examples are copy-paste ready, but the bulk of the skill is descriptive advice rather than concrete, executable instructions. The testing section mentions `cc --plugin-dir` but lacks complete validation scripts or automated checks.

2 / 3

Workflow Clarity

The 6-step creation process (Steps 1-6) provides a clear sequence, and the Implementation Workflow section summarizes it well. However, validation in Step 5 is a checklist without concrete commands or automated verification, and there are no explicit feedback loops for error recovery. The 'Use the skill-reviewer agent' suggestion is vague without specifying how to invoke it or what to do if issues are found.

2 / 3

Progressive Disclosure

Despite extensively teaching progressive disclosure, this skill fails to practice it. No bundle files are provided, yet the skill references `references/skill-creator-original.md`. The massive amount of content (writing style requirements, common mistakes, validation checklists, best practices summary, quick reference) should be split into reference files rather than inlined in SKILL.md. The skill violates its own advice of keeping SKILL.md to 1,500-2,000 words.

1 / 3

Total

6

/

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.

Validation9 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

skill_md_line_count

SKILL.md is long (638 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
anthropics/claude-plugins-official
Reviewed

Table of Contents

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