Conciseness

The body is dense, fragment-style corrections ('ConsoleLogin region varies by endpoint/cookies, NOT always us-east-1', 'Managed policy max versions: 5') with no padding and no explanation of concepts Claude already knows — every bullet is a verified fact or pointer. The brief 'About This Skill' paragraph is meta-guidance on verification policy, which earns its place; this fits the 'lean and efficient; every token earns its place' anchor.

Actionability

Most guidance is executable: a complete JSON condition-block example, the CLI command 'aws organizations list-available-policy-types', exact exception and method names ('DuplicatePolicyAttachmentException', 'activate()/deactivate()/delete()'), and a concrete SAML URL pattern. A few bullets remain terse hints rather than executable instruction (e.g., 'Instance profiles: waiter + time.sleep(10) pattern' gives no code), matching 'mostly executable guidance with minor gaps' rather than the copy-paste-ready level-5 anchor.

Workflow Clarity

The 'Common Workflows' section gives clear conditional dispatch to the two reference files, but the body itself contains no sequenced multi-step process and no validation checkpoints for operations (role creation, policy generation) that modify live IAM state — actual sequencing is deferred to the references. This matches 'steps listed but validation gaps; checkpoints missing or implicit'; it is below level 4, which requires a clear sequence with most checkpoints present in the content.

Progressive Disclosure

SKILL.md is a genuine overview with two clearly signaled, condition-gated, one-level-deep references that both exist in references/. However, scoring against the actual bundle: common-pitfalls.md and service-authorization.md are only reachable via a second hop through aws-iam-policy-generation.md (SKILL.md → reference → reference), so two of the four bundle files are not discoverable from the entry point — a real but contained organization gap fitting 'good structure; references mostly clear; minor organization gaps' rather than the fully navigable level-5 anchor.

Specificity

The description lists multiple concrete capabilities — 'verified corrections for IAM behaviors... policy evaluation edge cases, trust policy gotchas, STS session limits', 'structured workflows for IAM role management and baseline policy generation from application source code or a Terraform plan JSON', 'bucket policy deny patterns (VPC endpoint restrictions, org paths)', 'confused deputy protection' — with comprehensive coverage of the skill's scope. It matches the anchor 'lists multiple specific concrete actions; comprehensive coverage' and exceeds the level-4 anchor, which allows coverage gaps.

Completeness

It explicitly answers 'what' ('Provides verified corrections... Also provides structured workflows...') and 'when' ('Applies when creating IAM roles, writing IAM or bucket policies, generating policies... or any task needing a service or execution role'), and adds explicit exclusions ('Does not cover non-IAM authorization like Cognito user-pool policies'). This clearly matches the level-5 anchor with concrete trigger phrases; the level-4 anchor's complaint of a less-explicit 'when' does not apply.

Trigger Term Quality

Natural phrases like 'creating IAM roles', 'writing IAM or bucket policies', 'working with STS, Organizations', and 'any task needing a service or execution role' map well to what users would actually say. A few common variations are absent (e.g., 'assume role', 'trust policy' as a trigger, 'PassRole'), keeping it at 'good keyword coverage; a few natural terms missing' rather than the comprehensive level-5 anchor.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The niche is distinct (AWS IAM edge cases and role/policy workflows) with domain-specific triggers (IAM roles, bucket policies, STS, Organizations, condition operators) and an explicit non-coverage boundary, minimizing overlap with adjacent skills like general AWS or Cognito/RBAC work. It fits the 'clear niche with distinct triggers; minimal conflict risk' anchor.