sound

Surface and examine the hidden assumptions beneath ideas, opportunities, and plans. Probe what your thinking rests on before committing to a direction.

Quality

28%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

—

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./discovery/skills/sound/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

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 too abstract and philosophical to serve as an effective skill selector. It lacks concrete actions, natural trigger terms, explicit 'when to use' guidance, and any distinguishing characteristics that would help Claude choose it over other analytical or thinking skills.

Suggestions

Add a 'Use when...' clause with specific trigger scenarios, e.g., 'Use when the user asks to validate a plan, check assumptions, stress-test an idea, or identify blind spots before making a decision.'

Replace vague language with concrete actions, e.g., 'Identifies unstated assumptions in business plans, project proposals, and strategic decisions. Lists each assumption, assesses its risk level, and suggests validation methods.'

Include natural trigger terms users would actually say, such as 'assumption check,' 'what am I missing,' 'blind spots,' 'validate my thinking,' 'devil's advocate,' 'risk assessment,' or 'stress test my plan.'

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description uses abstract, vague language like 'surface and examine hidden assumptions' and 'probe what your thinking rests on.' No concrete actions are listed—there are no specific methods, outputs, or deliverables mentioned.	1 / 3
Completeness	The description vaguely addresses 'what' (examine assumptions) but has no explicit 'when' clause or trigger guidance. There is no 'Use when...' statement, which per the rubric should cap completeness at 2 at best, and the 'what' is itself too vague to score higher than 1.	1 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	The keywords used ('hidden assumptions,' 'probe,' 'committing to a direction') are not natural terms users would say. Users are more likely to say things like 'check my assumptions,' 'what am I missing,' 'validate my plan,' or 'devil's advocate.' The description lacks common user-facing trigger terms.	1 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	This description is extremely generic and could overlap with any critical thinking, brainstorming, decision-making, or strategic planning skill. There is nothing that carves out a distinct niche or provides unique trigger terms to differentiate it.	1 / 3
	Total	4 / 12 Passed

Implementation

57%

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

This is a well-structured coaching/facilitation skill with strong progressive disclosure and clear philosophical grounding. Its main weaknesses are the lack of concrete examples (what does a surfaced assumption actually look like?) and the absence of an explicit step-by-step workflow for the core sounding process. The content would benefit from a worked example and tighter sequencing.

Suggestions

Add a concrete worked example showing an idea being sounded — e.g., 'Idea: Self-serve onboarding will reduce support tickets' → surfaced assumptions with categories, importance ratings, and evidence levels.

Convert the 'What This Skill Does' bullet list into an explicit numbered workflow with a validation checkpoint (e.g., 'Confirm with PM which assumptions feel surprising or important before writing artifacts').

Trim the 'Your Stance' section — the representational talkback paragraph could be reduced to 1-2 sentences since the concept is well-explained by the first paragraph alone.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The content is mostly efficient but includes some unnecessary elaboration, particularly the extended explanation of 'representational talkback' and the philosophical framing in 'Your Stance.' The section on 'What Sound Does NOT Do' also explains something Claude could infer. However, the transitions section and core workflow are tight.	2 / 3
Actionability	The skill provides a clear conceptual framework and lists what to do at each step (state as testable belief, categorize, assess evidence, rate importance), but lacks concrete examples of actual assumption statements, categorization outputs, or sample dialogue. There's no executable template or worked example showing what a surfaced assumption looks like in practice.	2 / 3
Workflow Clarity	The workflow is implied — take an idea, surface assumptions, categorize them, assess evidence, then transition — but it's not presented as a clear sequence with explicit steps. The transitions section is well done, but the core sounding process lacks a numbered or ordered workflow with validation checkpoints (e.g., confirming with the PM before writing artifacts).	2 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	The skill effectively references external files for detailed content: the conversation guide in references/surface-assumptions.md, the assumption artifact schema, the artifacts skill, model.md, and guidelines.md. All references are one level deep and clearly signaled with descriptive context about what each file contains.	3 / 3
	Total	9 / 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
allowed_tools_field	'allowed-tools' contains unusual tool name(s)	Warning
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	9 / 11 Passed

Repository: audenaert/etak
Commit: 632c389

Reviewed: 6 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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