clawmail

Canonical joelclaw mail coordination protocol for all agents. Use when announcing work, checking inboxes, reserving files, releasing locks, handling task handoffs, triaging stale reservations, or auditing coordination quality. Triggers on: 'clawmail', 'agent mail', 'joelclaw mail', 'reserve files', 'release locks', 'handoff', 'agent coordination', 'mail status', or any multi-agent collaboration workflow.

Quality

91%

Does it follow best practices?

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Securityby

Low

Low-risk findings worth noting

Quality

Content

82%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.

A highly actionable, well-structured protocol skill with concrete commands and a clear required sequence. The main weaknesses are inline niche troubleshooting that bloats conciseness, and validation checkpoints separated from the main workflow rather than interleaved.

Suggestions

Move the deep reliability debugging (lsof lock-FD inspection, NumberOfFiles=8192 daemon tuning) into a references/ file, keeping only the core 'verify with status/locks/search' guidance inline — this trims conciseness and improves progressive disclosure.

Interleave explicit validation checkpoints into the Required Protocol steps (e.g., 'after reserve, verify with joelclaw mail locks') rather than isolating all verification in the separate Reliability Checks section.

Convert the loose Related links (ADR-0172, joelclaw mail --help, compatibility alias) into clearly signaled one-level-deep references, and note which are bundle files versus external docs.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	Mostly efficient and command-dense, but the reliability troubleshooting over-explains niche debugging ('inspect lsof ... \.(archive\|commit)\.lock', 'NumberOfFiles=8192') that could be trimmed or moved to a reference.	4 / 5
Actionability	Fully executable throughout — copy-paste ready 'joelclaw mail' commands, a wrapper-to-CLI mapping table, and a Command Quick Reference block covering register/send/inbox/read/reserve/renew/release/locks/search.	5 / 5
Workflow Clarity	The Required Protocol is a clear six-step numbered sequence with reliability feedback loops (degraded search, rejected flags, ok:true-with-nested-error), but validation checkpoints live in a separate section rather than woven between each protocol step.	4 / 5
Progressive Disclosure	Well-organized into clear sections with one-level-deep pointers, but all troubleshooting detail is inline (no bundle files exist to offload it) and the Related links are loose external references rather than bundle-backed.	4 / 5
	Total	17 / 20 Passed

Description

100%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.

A strong, third-person description that concretely names the protocol's capabilities, gives an explicit Use-when clause, and supplies a rich trigger-term list. It is distinctive and well-scoped to its niche.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Lists many concrete actions — 'announcing work, checking inboxes, reserving files, releasing locks, handling task handoffs, triaging stale reservations, or auditing coordination quality' — giving comprehensive coverage rather than vague language.	5 / 5
Completeness	Explicitly answers both what ('Canonical joelclaw mail coordination protocol for all agents') and when ('Use when announcing work, checking inboxes...' plus an explicit 'Triggers on:' list).	5 / 5
Trigger Term Quality	Comprehensive natural trigger terms including synonyms ('clawmail', 'agent mail', 'joelclaw mail') and activity phrases ('reserve files', 'release locks', 'handoff', 'mail status') that users would actually say.	5 / 5
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	Niche is tightly scoped to the joelclaw agent-mail protocol with distinctive triggers ('clawmail', 'joelclaw mail'), minimizing overlap with other skills; the only broad catch-all is 'any multi-agent collaboration workflow'.	5 / 5
	Total	20 / 20 Passed

Validation

93%

Warnings & errors only

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

Validation — 15 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	15 / 16 Passed

Repository: joelhooks/joelclaw
Path: skills/clawmail/SKILL.md
Commit: 7094ced

Reviewed: 3 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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