Conciseness

The body wastes nothing on concepts Claude already knows — there is no definition-stuffing, no library tutorials, no padded rationale; every line is a rule or a routing instruction. It sits at anchor 4 rather than 5 because several rules are packed to the edge of comprehension (e.g., the 100+ word description-authoring rule and the fused clauses in the sediment and completion-report rules), which is tightening room rather than over-explanation, so it does not drop to 3.

Actionability

For an instruction-only skill the guidance is largely executable: the mode table gives read-this-reference, done-when triples for all four modes, and the completion report prescribes a concrete per-mode output shape. It falls short of anchor 5 because the "Rules that hold in every mode" section is largely principle statements ("Conditions, not cases", "Sediment first") whose application steps live in the references rather than here, and no worked example of a finding, verdict, or report is given inline.

Workflow Clarity

The sequence is clear and gated: read the standard first, apply the cross-mode rules, pick a mode from the request, each mode carries an explicit done condition, and validation is mandated per risk ("the eval ran or its exact skip reason is recorded") with a completion report closing every mode. It does not reach anchor 5 because the validation loop itself (run eval, read failures, fix, re-run) is referenced via `references/evaluate.md` rather than sequenced here, and the mode chaining path ("a review that becomes an edit") is mentioned but not walked through.

Progressive Disclosure

The body routes by mode to five real one-level-deep bundle files (all of `references/new-skill.md`, `edit-skill.md`, `review-skill.md`, `respond-to-review.md`, and `evaluate.md` exist and are named at their point of use), with a single external authority document. It holds at 4 rather than 5 because the cross-mode rules section carries substantial inline detail — notably the description-authoring rule and the Sol/Fable portability rule — that reads as mode- or topic-specific material which could live in a reference, keeping the overview thicker than a clean index-and-signpost split.

Specificity

The description names its domain ("Applies this repository's skill-authoring standard as a procedure") and enumerates several specific actions — "creating a skill, editing one, reviewing a skill change, or acting on review feedback" — along with the concrete artifacts touched ("a SKILL.md, a reference, a persona prompt, a bundled script's instructions"). It stops short of anchor 5 because what applying the standard mechanically involves is left to the body, leaving minor coverage gaps in the actions themselves.

Completeness

It explicitly answers both questions: the what is "Applies this repository's skill-authoring standard as a procedure" and the when is a concrete "Use for any change to, or judgment about, a file under skills/**" with enumerated branches, plus a "Not for src/, tests/, or scripts/ code" exclusion. Both are stated with concrete trigger phrases, matching the anchor-5 example's structure; a 4 would require the when to be less explicit than it is.

Trigger Term Quality

Natural user phrases are well covered — "creating a skill", "editing one", "reviewing a skill change", "acting on review feedback", plus file terms like "SKILL.md" and "reference". It misses common synonyms such as "writing a skill" or "skill authoring" as user-spoken trigger phrasing, so it fits anchor 4 (good coverage, a few natural terms missing) rather than 5.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The niche is tightly scoped by path ("a file under skills/**") and by an explicit exclusion ("Not for src/, tests/, or scripts/ code"), with the distinctive mechanism (applying the repo's skill-authoring standard) named first. A 4 would require noticeable overlap with closely related skills, but the scoping and boundary clause keep conflict risk minimal.