Conciseness

The body is dominated by dense tables, concrete commands, and actionable rules with almost no padding of concepts Claude already knows. Minor trimming opportunities exist: exit-code semantics appear in Contract, "When it fails", and "Output Format", and the log path is repeated three times. Not 5 due to that repetition plus the contributor-focused section adding length for a subset of readers.

Actionability

Invocation is copy-paste ready across all contexts ("gbrain smoke-test", the startup-hook redirect, "exec: gbrain smoke-test"), the custom-test drop-in is a complete working example, and failure handling gives specific next actions (run "gbrain db-repair" and re-test; name the missing key). Placeholders in the contributor template and the OpenClaw path are explicitly pattern/path-justified rather than gaps.

Workflow Clarity

The single action (run the smoke test, then interpret results) is unambiguous, and the mutating auto-fix workflow is built around explicit validation: the test-first/re-test-after-fix contract, skip-vs-fail semantics ("Exit code = count of real failures, not skipped checks"), and "never report all-green when a test was skipped" provide the feedback loops the cap rule demands. Not 4 because checkpoints are explicit, not implicit.

Progressive Disclosure

The single-file body is well sectioned (Contract, Built-in Tests, Usage, Custom Tests, Env Vars, Known Issues, Failure protocol, Anti-patterns, Output) with one clearly signaled one-level reference to ../conventions/agent-operator-protocol.md. Not 5 because no bundle exists to split into, and the contributor "Adding Built-in Tests" section plus Known Issues are inline candidates for a references file at this length (~170 lines).

Specificity

"Tests critical services, auto-fixes bounded local issues, and reports worker topology without starting daemons" plus "Extensible via user-defined test scripts in ~/.gbrain/smoke-tests.d/*.sh" lists several concrete actions with minor gaps (it never names which services are checked). Not 5 because coverage stops short of enumerating what the tests cover; not 3 because it goes well beyond 1-2 actions.

Completeness

The "what" is explicit (tests critical services, bounded auto-fix, topology reporting, extensibility) and the "when" is concrete: "Run after machine/container restarts or whenever something seems broken." Both are clearly and explicitly answered with concrete trigger phrases, matching the top anchor.

Trigger Term Quality

"smoke tests", "machine/container restarts", and "whenever something seems broken" are natural phrases users would say. Not 5 because common synonyms like "health check" or "sanity check" appear only in the separate triggers field, not the description; not 3 because keyword coverage is good rather than partial.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Scoped to "gbrain installs (and OpenClaw services when present)", it occupies a clear niche with distinct restart/health-smoke-test triggers and minimal overlap risk with generic health-check skills. The explicit domain scoping keeps conflict risk low.