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instruction-cleanup

Use when CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, or instruction files have grown too large (200+ lines, 40k+ chars), when agent performance has degraded due to bloated context, or when the user asks to restructure or clean up their instruction files

56

0.97x
Quality

57%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

76%

0.97x

Average score across 1 eval scenario

SecuritybySnyk

Advisory

Suggest reviewing before use

Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./instruction-cleanup/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

77%

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

This is a strong, highly actionable skill with excellent workflow clarity and concrete verification steps. Its main weakness is length — at ~250 lines it's ironic for a skill about reducing instruction bloat. The content is well-organized internally but could benefit from extracting some reference material (destination guide, guardian integration details) into separate files to practice what it preaches.

Suggestions

Extract the Destination Guide table and Content Router details into a separate reference file (e.g., CONTENT_ROUTING.md) and use a pitch-style reference from the main skill — this would also demonstrate the technique the skill teaches.

Remove or significantly condense the 'Why This Matters' section — Claude doesn't need to be convinced about context window economics; a single sentence would suffice.

Consider extracting the instruction-guardian composition details (Step 0, flag lifecycle, carve-out mechanics) into a separate file, as this is integration-specific detail that not all users of this skill will need.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The skill is well-structured but verbose in places. The 'Why This Matters' section explains context window competition which Claude already understands. The Graphviz dot diagrams add visual appeal conceptually but consume significant tokens. The destination guide table partially repeats information from the content router. However, most content is genuinely instructive and not padding.

2 / 3

Actionability

The skill provides highly concrete, executable guidance throughout: specific bash commands for flag management, exact grep verification commands, precise table templates for the audit report and restructuring plan, concrete good/bad examples for pitch-style references vs bare paths, and clear target metrics. The content router flowchart and litmus test give unambiguous decision criteria.

3 / 3

Workflow Clarity

The three-phase workflow (Audit → Plan → Implement) is clearly sequenced with explicit gates between phases ('Present this report to the user before proceeding to Phase 2', 'get approval before implementing'). Phase 3 includes a verification step (Needle Grep) with concrete examples, a feedback loop for missing content, and a clear implementation order. The flag lifecycle (arm → work → disarm) is well-defined with safety nets.

3 / 3

Progressive Disclosure

The skill is a monolithic ~250-line file with no references to supporting documents. The content router diagram, destination guide, compaction rules, guardian integration details, and common mistakes could be split into separate reference files. However, the internal organization with clear phase headers and subsections is good, and no bundle files were provided, so there's nothing to split into. The length pushes it beyond what a single file should contain.

2 / 3

Total

10

/

12

Passed

Description

37%

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

This description is essentially all trigger/when clause with no capability statement. While it excels at specifying when to use the skill with concrete thresholds and natural keywords, it completely fails to describe what the skill actually does. A reader cannot determine whether this skill splits files, summarizes them, removes redundancy, or performs some other restructuring action.

Suggestions

Add a clear 'what' statement before the 'Use when' clause describing concrete actions, e.g., 'Restructures bloated instruction files by splitting into modular sections, removing redundancy, and optimizing for agent context windows.'

Include specific output actions like 'consolidates duplicate instructions', 'creates hierarchical file structure', or 'trims outdated directives' to make the capability concrete and distinguishable.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description lacks concrete actions. It mentions triggers like 'restructure or clean up' but never states what the skill actually does — no specific actions like 'splits files', 'removes duplicates', 'creates modular sections', etc.

1 / 3

Completeness

The description only answers 'when' (via the 'Use when...' clause) but completely omits 'what' — there is no explanation of what the skill actually does. The rubric states completeness requires both what AND when.

1 / 3

Trigger Term Quality

Excellent trigger terms: 'CLAUDE.md', 'AGENTS.md', 'instruction files', 'too large', '200+ lines', '40k+ chars', 'bloated context', 'degraded', 'restructure', 'clean up'. These are natural terms a user would say when facing this problem.

3 / 3

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The mention of specific file types (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md) and size thresholds provides some distinctiveness, but without stating what the skill does, it could overlap with general file editing or refactoring skills.

2 / 3

Total

7

/

12

Passed

Validation

100%

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

Validation11 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository
ivan-magda/instruction-health-skills
Reviewed

Table of Contents

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