Conciseness

Individual sections are dense and normative without explaining concepts Claude already knows, but the same rules are restated many times: porting/parity and golden-corpus requirements appear nearly verbatim across sections 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8, and the ~20-bullet anti-patterns list in section 8 largely restates section 1's invariants and section 5's validation rules. Mostly efficient but could be tightened considerably fits anchor 3; not 2 because the prose is information-rich rather than padded filler, not 4 because the cross-section redundancy is substantial rather than minor.

Actionability

Provides concrete, specific guidance: a copy-paste-ready VAL-* assertion template with exact field names (Surface, Needs, Behavior, Evidence), exact artifact paths (contract/<ID>.md, MEMORY.md, AGENTS.md, decisions/), defined task types (work/validate/gate), and a pre-submit_plan checklist. Mostly executable with minor gaps fits anchor 4; not 5 because there is no worked example of a real assertion or mission, and runtime mechanisms (submit_plan, advance_project, contract-review) are invoked without any invocation detail.

Workflow Clarity

Section 2 gives a numbered 14-step operating order with an explicit replan protocol ("trace the issue back to the earliest invalid step"), mandatory adversarial contract review before task planning, validation-before-gate ordering, evidence-only closure, and a feedback loop ("diagnose the root cause and patch the earliest invalid artifact"), plus a pre-submit checklist in section 6. This matches anchor 5's clear sequence with explicit validation steps, feedback loops, and checklists.

Progressive Disclosure

The 8-section structure is well organized, but the ~280-line skill is entirely monolithic — no references/, scripts/, or assets/ files exist, and clearly separable material (the assertion template and contract-review checklist, validation methods, the anti-pattern catalog) is inlined rather than split into one-level-deep reference files. Some structure but content that should be separate is inline fits anchor 3; not 4 because a 280-line single file is not appropriately placed content, not 2 because section headers and numbering provide real navigation.

Specificity

Enumerates concrete verbs ("create, change, port, migrate, integrate, or preserve durable codebase behavior") and concrete surfaces ("UI, API, CLI, background jobs, data/migrations, libraries, or operator workflows"), but the second sentence's list ("evidence floors", "multi-target task topology", "durable guidance") names process artifacts abstractly rather than describing concrete actions. Several specific actions with minor gaps fits anchor 4; not 5 because the "Defines..." list is less concrete than a fully actionable capability list.

Completeness

Explicitly answers "when" with concrete trigger phrasing ("Use when planning or replanning engineering missions that create, change, port, migrate, integrate, or preserve durable codebase behavior across...") and "what" ("Defines investigation, scope inventory, coherent VAL-* contracts, evidence floors..."), plus a negative boundary to a sibling skill. Both what and when are explicitly stated with concrete triggers, matching anchor 5 rather than 4 where the when would be less specific.

Trigger Term Quality

Contains natural phrases users would say — "planning or replanning", "port", "migrate", "integrate", "UI", "API", "CLI", "migrations", "libraries" — plus an explicit redirect trigger ("For pure metric search, use optimization-mission-playbook instead"). Good coverage with a few natural terms missing (no "refactor", "implement", "fix", or "test" synonyms) fits anchor 4 rather than 5.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

A clear niche (engineering mission planning within a specific orchestration ecosystem) with explicit sibling disambiguation ("For pure metric search, use optimization-mission-playbook instead") keeps it mostly distinct. Not 5 because "create, change... durable codebase behavior" is broad enough to overlap with many general coding and planning skills, matching anchor 4's minor overlap risk.