he-phase-heartbeat
Routes old phase-heartbeat requests into HE phase work: check the approved plan, reuse or create a 10-minute he-heartbeat only with authority, run phase gates, delegate the active slice to he-work, and stop before commit or tracker closure. Use when a user says phase heartbeat, keep this PR moving, or continue phases.
63
73%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
—
No eval scenarios have been run
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./Plugins/harness-engineering/skills/he-phase-heartbeat/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
85%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 description is strong in specificity and completeness, clearly listing concrete actions and providing an explicit 'Use when' clause with trigger phrases. The main weakness is that the trigger terms are somewhat niche and rely on internal jargon, which could limit discoverability if users phrase requests differently. The description is distinctive enough to avoid conflicts with other skills.
Suggestions
Add more natural language trigger variations beyond the internal jargon, such as 'next phase', 'advance PR phases', or 'resume phase work' to improve discoverability.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: check the approved plan, reuse or create a 10-minute he-heartbeat with authority, run phase gates, delegate the active slice to he-work, and stop before commit or tracker closure. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (routes old phase-heartbeat requests into HE phase work with specific steps) and 'when' (explicit 'Use when' clause with trigger phrases like 'phase heartbeat', 'keep this PR moving', 'continue phases'). | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes some natural trigger terms like 'phase heartbeat', 'keep this PR moving', and 'continue phases', but these are fairly niche and the description uses internal jargon ('HE phase work', 'he-heartbeat', 'he-work', 'phase gates') that users may not naturally say. Missing common variations or broader terms. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly specific niche around phase-heartbeat routing and HE phase work with distinct triggers. The specialized terminology and workflow steps make it very unlikely to conflict with other skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 11 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
62%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill provides a well-structured workflow with strong safety gates and clear stop conditions, which is appropriate for a routing/compatibility entrypoint. However, it suffers from moderate redundancy across sections (constraints, execution boundaries, failure mode, and gotchas all reinforce similar points) and lacks concrete executable commands or tool invocations, relying instead on prose descriptions of what to do. The output template is a strong point, providing a concrete example of expected output.
Suggestions
Consolidate overlapping sections (Constraints, Execution Boundaries, Failure Mode, Gotchas) into a single 'Safety & Boundaries' section to reduce redundancy and improve token efficiency.
Add concrete tool invocations or command examples in the procedure steps—e.g., show the actual command or API call for checking collector evidence or delegating to he-work.
Remove the Philosophy section; its content ('does not authorize implementation, staging, commits...') is already covered in Execution Boundaries and Constraints.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is moderately efficient but includes some redundancy—execution boundaries largely restates constraints, and several sections (failure mode, gotchas, validation gates) overlap in content. Some sections like 'Philosophy' explain routing concepts Claude could infer from the procedure itself. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | The procedure provides a clear sequence of steps and the output template gives a concrete YAML example, but there are no executable code/commands—steps are described in prose rather than with specific tool invocations or copy-paste-ready commands. The delegation to 'he-work' and 'he-heartbeat' is referenced but not shown concretely. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The procedure is clearly sequenced with explicit validation checkpoints (step 3 blocks on stale evidence, step 6 is a hard stop rule), and the validation gates section provides a fail-fast policy with specific gate conditions. The failure mode section adds a clear feedback loop for blocked states. | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | References to external files are listed at the bottom with clear paths, but no bundle files were provided to verify they exist. The skill itself is somewhat long with overlapping sections (Constraints, Execution Boundaries, Failure Mode, Gotchas, Validation Gates) that could be consolidated or split into a reference file. The 'When Not to Use' section provides good cross-skill navigation. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 12 Passed |
Validation
100%Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.
Validation — 11 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
No warnings or errors.
- Repository
- jscraik/Agent-Skills
- Commit
4c78f98
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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