Conciseness

The body is lean (~45 lines): no explanations of concepts Claude already knows, and every line carries non-obvious information (30–60 second propagation delay, exact environment variable names, CloudTrail for denied actions). It matches anchor 5 ('every token earns its place') and is not anchor 4, which requires identifiable over-explanation to trim — none is present.

Actionability

Guidance is mostly executable: a concrete CLI command ('aws ec2 describe-instances --region <region>'), exact env var names (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, ~/.aws/credentials), and a complete executable procedure one level deep in references/ec2-instance-profile-setup.md. It is anchor 4 rather than 5 because the body itself inlines only one command and delegates the rest, so it is not fully copy-paste ready within the body.

Workflow Clarity

The multi-step sequence with explicit validation exists in the referenced procedure (steps 'Verify Configuration and Test Access' and 'Generate Configuration Summary Report'), and the Troubleshooting section provides error-recovery feedback (propagation wait, restart, policy/CloudTrail checks). It is anchor 4 rather than 5 because the checkpoints and sequence are not surfaced in the body itself, leaving a minor gap for a reader who does not open the reference. The destructive-operation cap does not apply since the procedure includes validation and prompts before disassociating an existing profile.

Progressive Disclosure

The body is a clear overview with a single, clearly signaled, one-level-deep reference ('See [EC2 instance profile setup procedure](references/ec2-instance-profile-setup.md)') that exists and is well-organized (verified: overview, parameters, 10 steps, examples; no nested references), with short troubleshooting appropriately kept inline. This matches anchor 5; it is not anchor 4 because there are no organization gaps — navigation and content split are clean.

Specificity

The description lists several concrete actions — 'creating and attaching IAM roles via instance profiles, eliminating hardcoded credentials' — with named target services, but omits parts of the skill's actual lifecycle such as verification, so it fits anchor 4 ('several specific actions; minor gaps') rather than anchor 5's comprehensive coverage.

Completeness

It explicitly answers both: the 'what' ('Configures EC2 instances to securely call AWS services by creating and attaching IAM roles via instance profiles, eliminating hardcoded credentials') and the 'when' ('Use when an EC2 instance needs permissions to access AWS services like S3, DynamoDB, SQS, or CloudWatch through temporary credentials') with concrete trigger phrases, matching anchor 5 exactly. It is not anchor 4 because the 'when' clause is explicit and specific, not merely present.

Trigger Term Quality

Natural user phrases like 'EC2 instance needs permissions', 'S3, DynamoDB, SQS, or CloudWatch', 'temporary credentials', and 'hardcoded credentials' give good keyword coverage, but common variations such as 'grant access' or 'IAM role for EC2' are missing, matching anchor 4 rather than anchor 5's comprehensive synonym coverage.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

EC2 instance profiles with the named services is a distinct niche with service-specific triggers, but there is minor overlap risk with broader IAM-role or AWS-credentials skills, fitting anchor 4 ('mostly distinct; minor overlap risk') rather than anchor 5's minimal conflict risk.