Conciseness

The body is dense with zero padding and no explanation of concepts Claude already knows — every line is a behavioral rule. Not 5 because of minor trimmable material: the bare "The current year is 2026" line is time-sensitive information outside any deprecated-patterns section, and the Mandatory Completion Contract paragraph restates handoff/menu rules that step 10 repeats. Not 3 because there is no unnecessary explanation, only mild redundancy.

Actionability

Concrete, executable directives dominate: exact question text ("Plan ready at `<absolute path to plan>`. What would you like to do next?"), an exact return token (`settled-decision-invalidated`), and enumerated blocked-status fields (`status`, `phase`, `blocker`, `recovery_path`). Not 5 because most operational detail (tier definitions, phase sub-steps) is only named, not given — a reader must open references to act; not 3 because what is inlined is specific and executable, with only minor gaps.

Workflow Clarity

Phases are explicitly ordered (0 through 5) with gating ("Do not pass a decision point that has not resolved"), STOP markers before risky steps, and real error-recovery loops (unreadable reference → stop and report blocker + recovery path; invalidated decision → stop and return the token). Not 5 because the validation checkpoints themselves (confidence mode, ce-doc-review, Phase 5.4 mechanics) are deferred to references rather than stated in the body's sequence; not 3 because the sequence and recovery paths are explicit, not implicit.

Progressive Disclosure

Checked against the actual bundle: all ten references named in the body (output-mode, resume, intake, research, structure, plan-sections, final-review, reasoning-elevation, plan-handoff, output-contracts) exist in references/, each read is bound to a specific phase, and references are one level deep with clear signals. Not 5 because the body inlines dense policy (the Mandatory Completion Contract section, tier rules) that belongs in a reference, keeping the overview heavier than the anchor ideal; not 3 because organization and navigation are otherwise clear.

Specificity

Quotes several concrete actions — "Create structured plans", "break down implementation", "plan from requirements", "deepen an existing plan" — with minor coverage gaps (it never says what a plan contains or how it is delivered). Not 5 because coverage of the planning domain stops at the action list; not 3 because more than 1-2 specific actions are named across both software and non-software work.

Completeness

Explicitly answers both: what ("Create structured plans for multi-step work, including software and non-software tasks") and when ("Use when asked to plan, break down implementation, plan from requirements, or deepen an existing plan"). This matches the anchor-5 pattern of a clear what plus a concrete 'Use when' trigger list; a 4 would require the 'when' clause to be less explicit than it is.

Trigger Term Quality

Natural user phrases are present: "asked to plan", "break down implementation", "plan from requirements", "deepen an existing plan". Not 5 because common variations such as "requirements doc", "implementation plan", "roadmap", or "task breakdown" are missing; not 3 because the included terms are the phrases a user would naturally say, not jargon.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The niche is defined and disambiguated against siblings ("prefer ce-brainstorm for exploratory framing"), and triggers are planning-specific. Not 5 because "plan" is a broadly overlapping word that could collide with generic planning skills absent the ce-* family context; not 3 because explicit routing guidance keeps conflict risk minor.