Conciseness

Lean ~25-line body that assumes Claude's competence and adds only repo-specific, non-obvious rationale (the shared-checkout 'Why'); no padding about what git is or how commands work, so every token earns its place.

Actionability

Gives concrete, executable commands to run and avoid ('git checkout -b', 'git branch', 'git push', 'git status', 'git branch --show-current', 'origin next_release') with specific guardrail actions rather than vague direction.

Workflow Clarity

Clear guardrail sequence with explicit checkpoints — run 'git status'/'git branch --show-current' before shared-state commands and confirm before every push — so the destructive-operation cap is avoided; short of 5 because there is no explicit error-recovery/feedback loop beyond 'don't assume'.

Progressive Disclosure

A simple under-50-line skill with no external references, organized into well-signaled sections (Never create a branch, Default workflow, Confirm before push, Before shared-state commands), which satisfies the simple-skill exception.

Specificity

Names multiple concrete actions/commands — 'checkout -b, branch, push', 'commit-and-push directly to next_release' — with comprehensive coverage of the skill's narrow domain; not a level-4 case since there are no real coverage gaps.

Completeness

Explicit 'what' (governs branch-state git commands; default is commit-and-push to next_release) and an explicit concrete 'when' trigger ('Read before running any git command that changes branch state (checkout -b, branch, push)') equivalent to a 'Use when...' clause.

Trigger Term Quality

Strong natural keyword coverage ('git command', 'checkout -b', 'branch', 'push', 'commit-and-push', 'feature-branch/PR') that users would actually say; short of 5 because synonyms/extensions beyond the listed set are not exhaustive.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Tightly scoped to this repo's branch-state-changing commands and the 'next_release' workflow, giving it a clear niche with minimal overlap risk against other skills.