exa-cost-tuning
Optimize Exa costs through search type selection, caching, and usage monitoring. Use when analyzing Exa billing, reducing API costs, or implementing budget controls and usage alerts. Trigger with phrases like "exa cost", "exa billing", "reduce exa costs", "exa pricing", "exa expensive", "exa budget".
64
77%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
—
No eval scenarios have been run
Advisory
Suggest reviewing before use
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./plugins/saas-packs/exa-pack/skills/exa-cost-tuning/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
89%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 is a well-structured skill description that clearly defines its niche (Exa cost optimization), provides explicit 'Use when' guidance, and includes strong trigger terms. The main weakness is that the specific capabilities could be more granular—listing concrete actions like 'analyze billing breakdowns' or 'configure usage alerts' rather than broader categories.
Suggestions
Make capabilities more concrete by listing specific actions, e.g., 'Analyzes billing breakdowns by search type, configures result caching strategies, sets up usage alerts and budget thresholds' instead of the current higher-level phrasing.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | It names the domain (Exa cost optimization) and mentions some actions like 'search type selection, caching, and usage monitoring', but these are somewhat high-level rather than deeply concrete. It doesn't list specific operations like 'configure caching policies' or 'set up billing alerts'. | 2 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (optimize Exa costs through search type selection, caching, usage monitoring) and 'when' (analyzing Exa billing, reducing API costs, implementing budget controls) with explicit trigger phrases. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Excellent trigger term coverage with explicit natural phrases users would say: 'exa cost', 'exa billing', 'reduce exa costs', 'exa pricing', 'exa expensive', 'exa budget'. These are realistic user queries covering multiple variations. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Very distinct niche focused specifically on Exa API cost optimization. The trigger terms are highly specific to Exa billing/pricing and unlikely to conflict with other skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 11 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
64%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This is a solid, actionable skill with executable code examples covering multiple cost optimization strategies for Exa API usage. Its main strengths are the concrete TypeScript implementations and the well-organized cost drivers table and checklist. Weaknesses include the lack of validation/verification steps in the workflow and slightly verbose inline code that could benefit from being split into referenced files.
Suggestions
Add a validation step after implementing caching/deduplication, e.g., 'Run a test batch of 100 queries and compare cached vs uncached cost to verify savings'
Consider extracting the longer code examples (budget tracker class, search profiles) into bundle files and referencing them from the main skill to improve progressive disclosure
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is mostly efficient with good use of tables and code, but includes some unnecessary commentary (e.g., 'Typical RAG cache hit rate: 40-60%, directly cutting costs in half' is somewhat redundant with the section title). The cost drivers table and checklist are well-structured, though the overall length could be trimmed slightly. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | Provides fully executable TypeScript and bash code examples that are copy-paste ready. Each step includes concrete implementations—LRU caching, query deduplication, budget tracking class, and a curl command for usage monitoring. The search profiles with specific configuration objects are immediately usable. | 3 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | Steps are clearly sequenced (1-5) and logically ordered from search configuration through caching, deduplication, type selection, and monitoring. However, there are no explicit validation checkpoints or feedback loops—for instance, no step to verify that caching is actually reducing costs, or to validate that budget alerts are working before relying on them in production. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The content is well-structured with clear sections, a summary checklist, and an error handling table. However, the inline code examples are quite lengthy (the full skill is ~150 lines), and some could be split into referenced files. The 'Next Steps' references to other skills are good, but no bundle files exist to support progressive disclosure. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 12 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 — 9 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
| Criteria | Description | Result |
|---|---|---|
allowed_tools_field | 'allowed-tools' contains unusual tool name(s) | Warning |
frontmatter_unknown_keys | Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata | Warning |
Total | 9 / 11 Passed | |
- Commit
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- Reviewed
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