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".
83
81%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
Pending
No eval scenarios have been run
Advisory
Suggest reviewing before use
Quality
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 with strong completeness and excellent trigger term coverage for a clearly defined niche. The main weakness is that the capability actions could be more concrete and specific—listing more granular operations rather than broad categories like 'usage monitoring'. Overall it performs well for skill selection purposes.
Suggestions
Make capabilities more concrete by listing specific actions, e.g., 'configure search type selection between neural/keyword, implement response caching, set spending limits, generate cost breakdown reports' instead of broad terms like 'usage monitoring'.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Names the domain (Exa cost optimization) and some actions (search type selection, caching, usage monitoring), but the actions are somewhat high-level and not fully concrete—e.g., 'usage monitoring' and 'budget controls' are broad rather than listing specific operations like 'set spending limits' or 'generate cost reports'. | 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 listed. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Excellent coverage of natural trigger terms users would say: 'exa cost', 'exa billing', 'reduce exa costs', 'exa pricing', 'exa expensive', 'exa budget'. These are realistic phrases a user would type when seeking help with Exa API costs. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly distinctive—focuses specifically on Exa API cost optimization, which is a very narrow niche. The trigger terms are all Exa-specific, making it unlikely to conflict with general cost optimization or other API skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 11 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
72%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 excellent code examples and good structural organization. Its main weakness is the lack of validation checkpoints within the workflow—there's no guidance on verifying that cost optimizations are actually working (e.g., measuring before/after costs, confirming cache hit rates). Minor verbosity in inline comments could be trimmed.
Suggestions
Add validation checkpoints after key steps, such as 'Verify cache hit rate exceeds 30% after 24 hours' or 'Compare daily costs before and after implementing search profiles'.
Trim inline code comments that restate what the section title already conveys (e.g., the 'Typical RAG cache hit rate' comment in Step 2).
| 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 tightened. | 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 numbered and sequenced, but there are no validation checkpoints or feedback loops. For a cost optimization workflow involving budget controls and batch operations, there should be explicit verification steps (e.g., 'verify cache hit rate after implementation', 'confirm budget alerts fire correctly'). The checklist at the end partially compensates but lacks integration into the workflow. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | Well-structured with a clear overview, cost drivers table, numbered steps, a checklist summary, error handling table, and external resource links. References to related skills (exa-performance-tuning, exa-reliability-patterns) are one level deep and clearly signaled. Content is appropriately organized without being monolithic. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 10 / 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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