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kiro-validate-design

Interactive technical design quality review and validation. Use when reviewing design before implementation.

Quality

68%

Does it follow best practices?

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SecuritybySnyk

Passed

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Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./tools/cc-sdd/templates/agents/claude-code-skills/skills/kiro-validate-design/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

63%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

The body delivers a well-structured, actionable workflow with explicit fallbacks and a decision gate, but redundancy inflates token cost and the review process critically depends on a rules/design-review.md file that is not present in the bundle. Tightening the duplicates and resolving the reference would move it into the top tier.

Suggestions

Remove the duplicated mission statement (the Role and Core Mission sections repeat the same sentence) and consolidate the interactivity guidance, which appears in Core Mission, Execution Steps, Important Constraints, and Tool Guidance.

Trim the generic skill-selection boilerplate in Step 1 to the one rule that matters for this skill (which steering/playbook files to load before reviewing).

Ship or inline the content of rules/design-review.md — the review criteria, issue format, and output format all delegate to it, so its absence makes the core review process unverifiable.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The body is mostly efficient but has noticeable redundancy: the Role and Core Mission lines repeat 'Conduct interactive quality review of technical design to ensure readiness for implementation' verbatim, interactivity is stated at least three times, and Step 1 carries generic skill-selection boilerplate ('Select by description and read only needed guidance, even for small tasks; preserve required checks and host/project rules'). This exceeds anchor 4's 'minor instances of over-explanation' but is not severely padded like anchor 2.

3 / 5

Actionability

Concrete guidance dominates: exact file paths ('{{KIRO_DIR}}/specs/{feature}/design.md'), commands ('/kiro-spec-tasks {feature}'), hard limits ('Maximum 3 issues'), verbatim fallback messages, and a structured output format. Minor gaps remain — the codebase pattern survey step ('Gather existing architecture patterns... from the codebase') gives no method — so it is not anchor 5.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

The three-step sequence is clear with explicit error scenarios (missing design, empty steering, undefined language) and a GO/NO-GO decision gate plus a NO-GO feedback loop (address issues, re-run /kiro-spec-design, re-validate). It is not anchor 5 because the in-review checkpoints and criteria are delegated to the external design-review.md rather than validated inline.

4 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

Sections are well organized and the reference to 'rules/design-review.md from this skill's directory' is clearly signaled and one level deep, but that file — which carries the review criteria and output format the skill depends on — is absent from the bundle (no references/, scripts/, or assets/ directories exist). A critical dangling reference keeps this at anchor 3 rather than 4.

3 / 5

Total

14

/

20

Passed

Description

62%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

The description follows the what-plus-when pattern with an explicit 'Use when' clause and a reasonably distinct niche, but it is thin on specific capabilities and trigger variations. Expanding the action list and natural trigger phrases would raise it to the top anchors.

Suggestions

List the concrete actions the skill performs, e.g., 'Reviews technical designs for implementation readiness: identifies up to 3 critical issues, recognizes strengths, and delivers a GO/NO-GO decision with actionable next steps.'

Broaden trigger coverage with natural variations, e.g., 'Use when the user asks to review, validate, or critique a design (or design.md) before implementation.'

Tie the trigger to the design workflow artifacts so it is distinguishable from generic review skills, e.g., 'Use when a spec workflow produces a design document that needs validation before task generation.'

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description names the domain ("technical design quality review and validation") with two actions (review, validation), matching anchor 3's 'names domain and 1-2 concrete actions, but not comprehensive'. It does not list several specific actions (e.g., identifying critical issues, GO/NO-GO decisions), so it is not anchor 4.

3 / 5

Completeness

It has a clear 'what' ("Interactive technical design quality review and validation") and an explicit 'when' ("Use when reviewing design before implementation"), matching anchor 4. It is not anchor 5 because the when-clause largely restates the what rather than adding concrete trigger phrases like 'when the user asks to validate a design'.

4 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

It includes relevant natural terms ("reviewing design", "validation", "before implementation") but misses common variations and synonyms a user might say ("check the design", "critique", "design doc review"), fitting anchor 3. It falls short of anchor 4's broader keyword coverage.

3 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The pre-implementation technical-design-review niche is mostly distinct with only minor overlap risk against general code-review or design-generation skills, fitting anchor 4. It is not anchor 5 because generic 'review this design' requests could still attract it.

4 / 5

Total

14

/

20

Passed

Validation

81%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 13 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

allowed_tools_field

'allowed-tools' contains unusual tool name(s)

Warning

metadata_version

'metadata.version' is missing

Warning

frontmatter_unknown_keys

Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata

Warning

Total

13

/

16

Passed

Repository

gotalab/cc-sdd

Path

tools/cc-sdd/templates/agents/claude-code-skills/skills/kiro-validate-design/SKILL.md

Reviewed

Table of Contents

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