excel-variance-analyzer
Analyze budget vs actual variances in Excel with drill-down and root cause analysis. Use when performing variance analysis or explaining budget differences. Trigger with phrases like 'excel variance', 'analyze budget variance', 'actual vs budget'.
67
61%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
Pending
No eval scenarios have been run
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./plugins/business-tools/excel-analyst-pro/skills/excel-variance-analyzer/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
100%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-crafted skill description that clearly defines a specific niche (budget variance analysis in Excel), provides concrete capabilities (drill-down, root cause analysis), and includes explicit trigger guidance with natural user phrases. It follows the recommended pattern of 'what it does' + 'Use when...' + trigger terms, making it easy for Claude to select appropriately.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: 'Analyze budget vs actual variances', 'drill-down', and 'root cause analysis' in Excel. These are concrete, domain-specific capabilities. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both what ('Analyze budget vs actual variances in Excel with drill-down and root cause analysis') and when ('Use when performing variance analysis or explaining budget differences'), plus explicit trigger phrases. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes natural trigger terms users would actually say: 'excel variance', 'analyze budget variance', 'actual vs budget', 'variance analysis', 'budget differences'. Good coverage of common phrasings. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly specific niche combining Excel, budget variance analysis, and drill-down/root cause analysis. Unlikely to conflict with general Excel skills or general budgeting skills due to the specific focus on variance analysis. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 12 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
22%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill reads like a high-level outline or project brief rather than actionable guidance for Claude. It lacks any concrete Excel formulas, code snippets, or specific implementation details that would allow Claude to actually perform variance analysis. The examples describe desired outcomes without showing how to achieve them, and the referenced bundle file for calculation templates doesn't exist.
Suggestions
Add concrete Excel formulas for variance calculations (e.g., =B2-A2 for absolute variance, =IF(A2=0,"",B2/A2-1) for percentage variance) and materiality threshold logic.
Include a complete, executable example — either an Excel formula template or Python/openpyxl code that creates a variance analysis workbook from sample data.
Replace the abstract 5-step workflow with specific, detailed steps including validation checkpoints (e.g., 'Verify row counts match between budget and actuals before calculating variances').
Either provide the referenced variance-formulas.md bundle file or inline the critical formulas and templates directly in the skill.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The content is reasonably structured but includes some unnecessary sections like Prerequisites (Claude knows what's needed for variance analysis) and the Resources section links to a non-existent bundle file. The examples are descriptive rather than concrete, adding tokens without much value. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | The instructions are entirely abstract and vague — 'Import budget and actual data into comparison template' and 'Calculate absolute and percentage variances' provide no concrete formulas, Excel functions, code, or specific steps. There are no executable examples, no actual Excel formulas, no VBA/Python code, and no copy-paste ready content. | 1 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The five numbered steps are high-level descriptions without any validation checkpoints, specific commands, or feedback loops. There's no guidance on how to verify results at each step, and the workflow reads more like a table of contents than an actionable sequence. | 1 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The content references a bundle file (variance-formulas.md) for calculation templates, which is a good progressive disclosure pattern, but the bundle file doesn't actually exist. The structure has clear sections but the main content is too thin to justify splitting — the real problem is that detailed content is missing entirely rather than being appropriately distributed. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 6 / 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 | |
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- Reviewed
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