designing-multi-region-applications
Guides developers in selecting and implementing multi-region patterns for CockroachDB applications, covering active-passive vs active-active architectures, REGIONAL BY ROW, GLOBAL tables, manual geo-partitioning with lease preferences, and live demo setup with validation queries. Use when designing multi-region database topologies, choosing between REGIONAL BY ROW and manual partitioning, building multi-region demos, or optimizing cross-region latency.
90
88%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
Pending
No eval scenarios have been run
Passed
No known issues
Quality
Discovery
100%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 is an excellent skill description that clearly articulates specific capabilities around CockroachDB multi-region patterns, includes rich trigger terms that developers would naturally use, and provides an explicit 'Use when' clause with well-defined scenarios. The description is concise yet comprehensive, uses proper third-person voice, and occupies a distinct niche that minimizes conflict risk with other skills.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: selecting multi-region patterns, active-passive vs active-active architectures, REGIONAL BY ROW, GLOBAL tables, manual geo-partitioning with lease preferences, and live demo setup with validation queries. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (guides developers in selecting and implementing multi-region patterns, covering specific architectures and table types) and 'when' (explicit 'Use when' clause listing designing topologies, choosing between partitioning strategies, building demos, or optimizing latency). | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes strong natural keywords users would say: 'multi-region', 'CockroachDB', 'active-passive', 'active-active', 'REGIONAL BY ROW', 'GLOBAL tables', 'geo-partitioning', 'lease preferences', 'cross-region latency', 'multi-region demos'. These cover both conceptual and technical terms a developer would naturally use. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly distinctive with a clear niche: CockroachDB multi-region patterns specifically. The combination of CockroachDB-specific terminology (REGIONAL BY ROW, GLOBAL tables, lease preferences) makes it very unlikely to conflict with other skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 12 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
77%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This is a strong, actionable skill with excellent workflow clarity and concrete, executable examples covering multiple multi-region patterns. Its main weakness is length—at ~300 lines with no bundle files for progressive disclosure, it could benefit from splitting demo setup and migration checklists into separate referenced files. Some sections (prerequisites, output expectations, demo talking points) add moderate verbosity without proportional instructional value.
Suggestions
Extract the 'Live Demo Setup' section and 'Multi-Region Migration Checklist' into separate bundle files (e.g., DEMO.md, MIGRATION_CHECKLIST.md) and reference them from the main skill to reduce monolithic length.
Remove or condense the 'When to Use This Skill', 'Prerequisites', and 'Output Expectations' sections—these largely restate what's obvious from the skill title and content, and Claude doesn't need meta-instructions about when to apply a skill.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is reasonably efficient but includes some unnecessary sections like 'When to Use This Skill' (8 bullet points), 'Prerequisites', and 'Output Expectations' that add bulk without proportional value. The pattern descriptions are well-structured but could be tighter—e.g., the 'Characteristics' bullets repeat latency numbers across patterns. The 'Demo Talking Points' section largely restates what was already covered. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | The skill provides fully executable SQL DDL examples for manual geo-partitioning and REGIONAL BY ROW, a complete bash command for demo cluster setup, concrete validation queries with SHOW RANGES, and a step-by-step migration checklist. Code examples are copy-paste ready with realistic table schemas and zone configurations. | 3 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The skill presents a clear decision workflow (Step 1: identify write model → Step 2: choose pattern), a sequenced demo flow with explicit validation checkpoints, and a numbered migration checklist. Validation queries are included with specific pass/fail criteria (leaseholder locality matching partition region). The guardrails section adds safety constraints for multi-step operations. | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The skill references two sibling skills appropriately at the top and includes external documentation links. However, the content is quite long (~300 lines) and monolithic—the demo setup, migration checklist, and detailed pattern DDL could be split into separate files. No bundle files exist to offload this content, so everything is inline in a single document. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 10 / 12 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 — 11 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
No warnings or errors.
- Repository
- cockroachlabs/cockroachdb-skills
- Commit
84bc1e4
- Reviewed
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