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add-dock-band

Add dock band support to your Command Palette extension for persistent toolbar widgets. Use when asked to add dock support, toolbar buttons, persistent UI widgets, taskbar integration, live-updating status displays, quick-access buttons, or always-visible controls. Supports single buttons, multi-button strips, and live-updating content.

Quality

87%

Does it follow best practices?

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Passed

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SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

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 well-structured, code-first skill body that is immediately actionable across all three dock band variants, with genuinely useful failure-mode notes. Weakest spots are mild redundancy with the description and the absence of any validation/verification step for the Id-required constraint.

Suggestions

Trim or merge the 'When to Use This Skill' section into the intro, since it repeats the frontmatter description almost verbatim.

Promote the 'non-empty Id' requirement from a trailing note into a checklist step right after the Quick Start example, so it is caught before the band silently fails to render.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The body is efficient — code-first sections, a dense render-behavior table, and a one-line prerequisites note — but the 'When to Use This Skill' section largely duplicates the frontmatter description and could be trimmed.

4 / 5

Actionability

Three complete, executable C# examples (single button, WrappedDockItem multi-button, timer-driven live band) cover the common cases, supplemented by a copy-paste-ready GetCommandItem override and concrete gotchas ('items without an ID are ignored').

5 / 5

Workflow Clarity

The path is clear and well-ordered (prerequisites → quick start → variants → pinning → gotchas), and the skill is non-destructive so no validation cap applies; the gap is that the Id-required failure mode is stated as a note rather than an explicit check/troubleshooting step.

4 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

A single self-contained file with well-organized sections and one clearly signaled external documentation link; at ~140 lines with three variants all core to the topic, the inline placement is appropriate, though the live-updating example could live in a reference file.

4 / 5

Total

17

/

20

Passed

Description

86%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 description with excellent trigger coverage and an explicit 'Use when' clause covering both what and when. The main deductions are the second-person 'your' construction and a few broadly-worded trigger terms that could overlap with adjacent widget/UI skills.

Suggestions

Rewrite in third person (e.g., 'Adds dock band support to Command Palette extensions...') to drop the second-person 'your' voice.

Qualify the generic triggers with the product context, e.g., 'Command Palette dock bands' rather than bare 'toolbar buttons' or 'taskbar integration', to reduce overlap with OS-taskbar skills.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description names the domain ('Add dock band support to your Command Palette extension') and enumerates capability forms ('Supports single buttons, multi-button strips, and live-updating content'), which is a solid 4; however, the second-person phrasing 'your Command Palette extension' incurs the mandated 1-point voice penalty, bringing it to 3.

3 / 5

Completeness

Both parts are explicit: the 'what' ('Add dock band support... for persistent toolbar widgets') and a concrete 'Use when...' clause listing specific trigger scenarios, matching the top anchor exactly.

5 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

'Use when asked to add dock support, toolbar buttons, persistent UI widgets, taskbar integration, live-updating status displays, quick-access buttons, or always-visible controls' comprehensively covers natural trigger phrasing with multiple synonyms for the same intent.

5 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

'Command Palette extension' scopes a clear niche, but generic trigger phrases like 'taskbar integration', 'toolbar buttons', and 'always-visible controls' carry minor overlap risk with OS-taskbar or generic UI-widget skills.

4 / 5

Total

17

/

20

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 — 16 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository

microsoft/PowerToys

Path

src/modules/cmdpal/ExtensionTemplate/TemplateCmdPalExtension/.github/skills/add-dock-band/SKILL.md

Reviewed

Table of Contents

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