Conciseness

The body is lean and assumes Claude's competence — no explanation of what a figure or matplotlib is, every section carries operational content. It falls short of level 5 due to minor redundancy: three consecutive bullets in 'Figure selection rules' ('Do not use matplotlib...', 'Keep figure text sparse', 'Any explanation longer than a short phrase belongs in the caption') restate the same point, and the 'Suggested tools' list duplicates the frontmatter metadata block.

Actionability

The workflow names concrete tools ('use `generate_schematic_figure` with a precise prompt', 'use reproducible scripts or rendering tools, and keep the script path') and the caption template and image checks are specific, but there is no example caption, no concrete output-path convention, and the Output Contract is a bare noun list ('Return figure intent, output path, script path, source refs, and caption draft') with no format. This is more than level 2's high-level hints but lacks the completeness and copy-ready specificity of level 4.

Workflow Clarity

The six-step workflow is a clear claim-first sequence with an inspection checkpoint (step 5: 'Inspect the figure for readability, labeling, and whether the intended comparison is obvious') reinforced by a checks checklist. It misses level 5 because there is no explicit feedback loop — what to do when inspection fails or when data/paths are missing beyond the single 'do not invent figures' guard — and the checkpoint is implicit rather than a validate-and-retry cycle.

Progressive Disclosure

The body itself is well organized with clear sections, and the two references ('Read [../_references/section-patterns-and-story.md] for figure logic', 'Read [../_references/submission-and-editorial-readiness.md] before finalizing legends') are clearly signaled and purpose-annotated. However, the referenced files do not exist in the bundle — there is no `_references/`, `references/`, `scripts/`, or `assets/` directory — so the navigation structure is broken at the exact point it delegates detail, which the guideline to score against the actual bundle structure penalizes. It stays above level 2 because the inline content is well sectioned and references are clearly signaled, not buried.

Specificity

"Design evidence-carrying figures and captions from research outputs, with reproducible script and data references" names the domain (manuscript figures/captions) and two concrete actions (design figures, write captions) plus provenance tracking, but stops short of the comprehensive multi-action enumeration of the 4–5 anchors. It is above level 2 because the actions are specific rather than generic ('Processes PDF files'), but below level 4 because only the two core actions are covered without coverage of the skill's other capabilities (schematics, tables, rendering checks).

Completeness

The 'what' is clearly stated (design figures and captions with script/data provenance), but there is no 'Use when...' clause or equivalent trigger guidance, which the guidelines say caps completeness at 3. It does not reach level 4 because the 'when' is entirely absent rather than merely under-specified.

Trigger Term Quality

Relevant keywords like "figures", "captions", and "research outputs" are present, but common natural variations users would say — "plot", "chart", "schematic", "graph", "table", "paper figure" — are missing, and "evidence-carrying" is authorial phrasing no user would utter. It beats level 2 ('one or two generic keywords') on relevance but lacks the synonym coverage of level 4.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The combination of figures + captions + reproducible script/data references carves a fairly clear manuscript-figure niche with distinct triggers, with only minor overlap risk against generic plotting or dataviz skills. It does not reach level 5 because terms like 'figures' and 'captions' alone could still plausibly match adjacent charting or document-formatting skills.