Conciseness

The body is lean and assumes Claude's competence — no concept explanations, dense imperative instructions throughout. Minor trimming opportunities exist: truth-lane independence is stated in both Outputs ('A passing lane does not infer another lane') and Workflow step 6, and blocker-forwarding rules repeat across Workflow steps 5-6 and Failure Mode. Not 5 because of this cross-section redundancy; not 3 because there is no padding or explanation of known concepts.

Actionability

The Validation section provides eight copy-paste-ready commands, and the output contract is enumerated at field level (task_id, receipt_id, decision, closure_eligibility, etc.). Not 5 because the core deliverable — the YAML output contract — has no inline example (examples live only in references/goal-contract.md) and several workflow steps are policy statements ('reconcile board facts with native status') without concrete how-to; not 3 because the commands and field enumerations are genuinely executable and specific.

Workflow Clarity

A seven-step sequence with explicit validation gates: 'rerun the exact failed gate once', 'do not begin Worker work until check_goal_board.py passes', and stop conditions with error-recovery routing (repair → Scout/Judge/PM recovery). The Validation section reinforces the feedback loop (narrowest gate first, repair scoped cause, rerun). Matches the top anchor including feedback loops and error recovery.

Progressive Disclosure

The References section signals each of six one-level-deep files with its purpose (goal contract, modes, markers, native runtime, session closeout, implementation notes, evals), and all referenced paths exist in references/ with no nested links inside them. The body stays a ~140-line overview with well-organized sections, so content is appropriately split and navigation is easy.

Specificity

Lists multiple specific concrete actions with named artifacts — 'Reads goal.md, state.yaml, receipts.jsonl', 'syncs reported status with board files', 'fixes invalid state.yaml', 'classifies blockers', 'decides done' — giving comprehensive coverage of the skill's capabilities. Not 4 because coverage is comprehensive rather than having minor gaps; not below because every action is concrete and domain-specific.

Completeness

Explicitly answers both: 'when' via the 'Use when a Codex goal/task is stuck, hanging, not finishing, or needs status' clause with concrete trigger phrases, and 'what' via the enumerated actions (reads files, syncs status, fixes state, classifies blockers, decides done), plus a negative boundary ('Not for ordinary reviews or one-off fixes'). Clearly matches the top anchor.

Trigger Term Quality

'stuck, hanging, not finishing, or needs status' are natural phrases a user would say, plus 'goal/task' as domain nouns. A few common variations are missing (e.g., 'stalled', 'blocked', 'frozen', 'failing to finish'), so it does not reach comprehensive synonym coverage.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Clear niche (governed Codex goal boards) with distinctive artifacts (goal.md, state.yaml, receipts.jsonl, board files) and an explicit exclusion clause separating it from ordinary review/fix skills, so conflict risk is minimal.