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debug-with-file

Interactive hypothesis-driven debugging with documented exploration, understanding evolution, and analysis-assisted correction.

27

Quality

19%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

No eval scenarios have been run

SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No known issues

Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./.codex/skills/debug-with-file/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

39%

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

The skill defines a thorough hypothesis-driven debugging workflow with clear sequencing and good error handling, but is severely undermined by its verbosity and monolithic structure. The same flow is described three times in different formats, templates are shown redundantly, and much of the code uses undefined helper functions making it illustrative rather than executable. At its current length (~400+ lines), it desperately needs to be split into multiple files with the SKILL.md serving as a concise overview.

Suggestions

Reduce the document to ~100-150 lines by eliminating redundant flow descriptions (keep only the ASCII tree version), removing the duplicate understanding.md template, and consolidating the session folder structure into a single mention.

Split instrumentation templates, understanding.md template, and hypotheses.json schema into separate bundle files referenced from the main SKILL.md.

Replace pseudocode stubs (extractErrorKeywords, analyzeSearchResults, evaluateEvidence, removeDebugRegions) with either actual implementations or remove them entirely and describe the expected behavior in prose — the current approach gives a false sense of executability.

Remove the Chinese text in Step 0 (or translate it) for consistency, and eliminate explanatory commentary that Claude doesn't need (e.g., explaining what NDJSON is, what each JSON field means when the field names are self-evident).

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

Extremely verbose at ~400+ lines. Massive amounts of template code, repeated flow diagrams (the iteration flow is shown three times in different formats), redundant sections (session folder structure repeated, understanding template shown twice), and explanations of concepts Claude already knows. The consolidation rules section includes good/bad examples that are helpful but the overall document is heavily padded.

1 / 3

Actionability

Provides concrete templates for logging instrumentation (Python/JS) and file structures, but much of the code is pseudocode with undefined functions (extractErrorKeywords, analyzeSearchResults, evaluateEvidence, removeDebugRegions, groupBy). The hypothesis generation function returns a stub. The code is illustrative rather than executable.

2 / 3

Workflow Clarity

The multi-step workflow is clearly sequenced with explicit mode detection (explore/analyze/continue), validation checkpoints (hypothesis evaluation, verification after fix), feedback loops (fix doesn't work → iterate, all rejected → new hypotheses, >5 iterations → escalate), and an error handling table covering edge cases.

3 / 3

Progressive Disclosure

Monolithic wall of text with no references to external files despite the content being long enough to warrant splitting. Everything is inline — templates, examples, error handling, consolidation rules, format specifications. No bundle files are provided, and the content would benefit enormously from splitting instrumentation templates, understanding.md templates, and reference tables into separate files.

1 / 3

Total

7

/

12

Passed

Description

0%

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 overly abstract and relies on academic-sounding buzzwords rather than concrete actions or natural trigger terms. It fails to specify what the skill actually does in practical terms, provides no 'Use when...' guidance, and would be nearly impossible for Claude to correctly select from a pool of skills. It reads more like a research paper title than a functional skill description.

Suggestions

Replace abstract phrases with concrete actions, e.g., 'Systematically diagnoses bugs by forming hypotheses, adding logging/breakpoints, analyzing stack traces, and documenting findings at each step.'

Add an explicit 'Use when...' clause with natural trigger terms like 'Use when the user encounters a bug, error, exception, or unexpected behavior and needs help systematically tracking down the root cause.'

Include common user-facing keywords such as 'bug', 'error', 'fix', 'debug', 'crash', 'traceback', 'root cause' to improve trigger term coverage.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description uses abstract, buzzword-heavy language like 'hypothesis-driven debugging', 'documented exploration', 'understanding evolution', and 'analysis-assisted correction' without listing any concrete actions. No specific operations (e.g., 'set breakpoints', 'analyze stack traces', 'inspect variables') are mentioned.

1 / 3

Completeness

The description vaguely addresses 'what' (debugging) but provides no explicit 'when' clause or trigger guidance. There is no 'Use when...' statement or equivalent, and the 'what' itself is too abstract to be useful.

1 / 3

Trigger Term Quality

The only natural keyword a user might say is 'debugging', but the rest of the terms ('hypothesis-driven', 'documented exploration', 'understanding evolution', 'analysis-assisted correction') are not phrases users would naturally use when asking for help. Missing common terms like 'bug', 'error', 'fix', 'crash', 'traceback', 'exception'.

1 / 3

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The description is so vague that it could overlap with any debugging, troubleshooting, or code analysis skill. 'Debugging' is extremely broad, and the qualifying adjectives ('hypothesis-driven', 'interactive') don't narrow the niche meaningfully.

1 / 3

Total

4

/

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 (622 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
catlog22/Claude-Code-Workflow
Reviewed

Table of Contents

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