CtrlK
BlogDocsLog inGet started
Tessl Logo
SkillPublic

diagnosing-superpowers

Use when a superpowers session went wrong and your human partner wants to know why — repeated work, ignored plans, stumbles, poor results, a skill that didn't fire, "it took too long", "why is it so expensive", "what is it doing" — or wants to build a bug report for the superpowers maintainers, for the current session or a past one identified by id or path, on any harness.

64

Quality

81%

Does it follow best practices?

Run evals on this skill

Adds up to 20 points to the overall score

View guide
SecuritybySnyk

Low

Low-risk findings worth noting

The canonical home for this skill is diagnosing-superpowers in obra/superpowers

SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

77%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

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

An unusually disciplined instruction-only skill: a tightly written, well-gated workflow with real validation feedback loops, no filler, and strong anti-drift scaffolding. Its weakness is the bundle itself — the body's navigation points mostly at template and prompt files that are not present, and one bundled reference is orphaned, so progressive disclosure only works for the references/ files.

Suggestions

Ship the referenced templates/ and prompts/ files in the bundle (case.md, report.md, issue.md, bundle-README.md, analyst-common.md, the seven analyst prompts, scrub.md, scrub-audit.md, similar-session.md), or remove those references from the body.

Link references/redaction-policy.md from the body where redaction levels are defined (step 6), since it is bundled but currently unreachable from SKILL.md.

Give the similar-sessions step (step 7) a concrete command for listing candidates by mtime and size (e.g. an ls -lt or find -printf invocation) so it does not depend solely on the missing prompts/similar-session.md.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The body is dense and imperative with zero concept explanations and no padding — every section ('Workflow', 'Quick reference', 'Hard rules', 'Red Flags') carries operational content, and it assumes Claude's competence throughout. It falls short of the lean anchor at 5 because the intake-before-analysis rule is stated three times in 'Red Flags' rows after already appearing as a Hard rule ('Intake before analysis. Nothing in steps 2–7 starts until your partner has answered'), a repetition that could be trimmed.

4 / 5

Actionability

Most steps are concretely executable: exact paths ('~/.superpowers/diagnosing-superpowers/<session-id>/'), exact files to dispatch ('prompts/analyst-common.md', the seven named dimension prompts), exact commands ('zip -r or tar -czf'), and exact redaction levels ('skeleton (no tool-result bodies), evidence (bodies only for cited events), full'). It is 4 rather than 5 because a few steps defer detail without a backing file in the bundle — 'list candidates by mtime and size', 'find marker line numbers', 'turn confirmed findings into a signature' give direction but no runnable command or definition.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

The seven steps are numbered and sequenced with explicit conditional gates ('Steps 5–7 run only on their stated condition'), explicit output validation ('Discard any returned finding without path:line'), a genuine feedback loop ('dispatch prompts/scrub.md, then prompts/scrub-audit.md, repeating both until the audit returns CLEAN'), and approval checkpoints before risky outward actions ('No archive before your partner has seen the scrub log… No issue or comment before they approve the exact text'). This matches the top anchor: clear sequence, explicit validation, error-recovery loops.

5 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

The design is right — an overview body with inline, well-signaled, one-level-deep references ('per references/session-discovery.md', 'Follow references/context-safety.md on every session file') — but scored against the actual bundle, 3 of the ~15 referenced paths exist (session-discovery.md, context-safety.md, github-issues.md) while all templates/ and prompts/ files referenced by the workflow (case.md, report.md, issue.md, bundle-README.md, analyst-common.md, the seven analyst prompts, scrub.md, scrub-audit.md, similar-session.md) are absent, and the bundled references/redaction-policy.md is never referenced from the body. Navigation is broken in both directions, which is more than the 'minor organization gaps' of the 4 anchor.

3 / 5

Total

16

/

20

Passed

Description

76%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

A trigger-rich, highly distinctive description that will fire on exactly the right requests, with excellent verbatim trigger phrases. Its main weaknesses are the second-person voice ('your human partner'), which violates the third-person convention and costs specificity, and the absence of any explicit statement of what the skill does.

Suggestions

Rewrite in third person to match convention and avoid the specificity penalty: 'Use when a superpowers session went wrong and the human partner wants to know why…' instead of 'your human partner'.

Add 1-2 explicit skill actions up front, e.g. 'Reads session transcripts on disk and reports evidence-backed findings (path:line citations), or assembles a scrubbed bug-report bundle for the superpowers maintainers.'

Consider naming the transcript/case-file artifacts (e.g. 'session transcripts', 'case file') as additional natural trigger terms users might mention.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description names the domain ("a superpowers session went wrong") and one concrete deliverable ("build a bug report for the superpowers maintainers"), which would anchor at 3, but it is written in second person ("your human partner wants to know why"), and the rubric's judging guideline mandates a 1-point specificity penalty for non-third-person voice. What the skill actually does (reading transcripts, reporting cited findings) is never stated, so it does not reach the 'several specific actions' anchor at 4.

2 / 5

Completeness

The 'when' is explicit and rich ("Use when a superpowers session went wrong… or wants to build a bug report… for the current session or a past one identified by id or path, on any harness"), and a 'what' is present (determine why the session went wrong; build a bug report). It sits at 4 rather than 5 because the 'what' is scenario-shaped rather than an explicit statement of the skill's actions, and at 4 rather than 3 because both elements are clearly present with concrete triggers.

4 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

It quotes verbatim the natural phrases a frustrated partner would actually say — "it took too long", "why is it so expensive", "what is it doing", "a skill that didn't fire" — plus symptom synonyms ("repeated work, ignored plans, stumbles, poor results"). This matches the top anchor: comprehensive natural-term coverage including variations.

5 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The niche is unambiguous — diagnosing "superpowers" sessions — and triggers like "a skill that didn't fired" and the quoted complaints are specific to that niche, matching the 'clear niche with distinct triggers; minimal conflict risk' anchor. Generic-sounding symptoms ("poor results", "stumbles") are all scoped by 'a superpowers session went wrong', preventing overlap with general debugging skills.

5 / 5

Total

16

/

20

Passed

Validation

100%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 16 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository

chandler767/WorkJournal

Path

.tessl/plugins/obra/superpowers/skills/diagnosing-superpowers/SKILL.md

Reviewed

Table of Contents

Is this your skill?

If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.