Name: nic-debugging
Rating: 67.2 (1 reviews)
Author: nginx

nic-debugging

Debugging and troubleshooting patterns for NIC. Use when diagnosing failures, tracing issues, investigating NGINX reload errors, config generation bugs, or controller sync problems.

Quality

84%

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Securityby

Passed

No findings from the security scan

Quality

Content

96%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.

The body is an exemplary repo-specific debugging guide: fully executable commands, exact file and function names, a sequenced workflow with verification and regression-prevention steps, and explicit feedback loops for snapshot-test handling. Its only structural question is whether some failure-mode detail belongs in reference files rather than inline.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The body is lean and dense: failure modes, tables of log locations and diagnostic commands, and repo-specific gotchas with no explanation of concepts Claude already knows. Every token carries information not derivable from general knowledge.	5 / 5
Actionability	Guidance is copy-paste ready: exact commands ('kubectl get vs,vsr,ts,pol -A', 'nginx -t', 'make test-update-snaps'), exact source paths ('internal/configs/version2/http.go'), and named internal functions ('containsDangerousChars()', 'generatePolicies()') covering the common failure cases.	5 / 5
Workflow Clarity	The 7-step Debugging Workflow is clearly sequenced with explicit validation ('Verify — make test passes') and a 'Prevent' regression step, and the snapshot-test section includes feedback loops for both the intentional-change and error cases, including the inverse no-diff failure mode.	5 / 5
Progressive Disclosure	No bundle files exist and the single SKILL.md is well-sectioned with clear headers and tables, so structure is good. At ~130 lines it exceeds the simple-skill exception, and the per-failure-mode detail (e.g. Config Generation Debugging) could arguably live in reference files — minor organization gap.	4 / 5
	Total	19 / 20 Passed

Description

65%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.

The description has a clear, explicit 'Use when...' trigger clause with concrete, natural trigger terms for the NGINX Ingress Controller domain. Its weakness is the 'what' half: it claims generic 'debugging and troubleshooting patterns' without naming any concrete capability, and its broadest trigger phrases could over-fire.

Suggestions

Replace the generic 'Debugging and troubleshooting patterns for NIC' opening with 2-3 concrete capabilities, e.g. 'Diagnose NGINX reload failures, CRD validation errors, and controller panics by tracing logs, generated config, and snapshot tests'.

Drop or narrow the overly generic triggers 'diagnosing failures, tracing issues' — they can match any debugging task — and keep the specific ones (NGINX reload errors, config generation bugs, controller sync problems).

Add missing natural synonyms users would say, such as 'Ingress', 'VirtualServer', or 'kubectl', and expand 'NIC' to 'NGINX Ingress Controller' at least once so the description is self-describing outside the repo.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description names the domain ('Debugging and troubleshooting patterns for NIC') but lists no concrete capabilities — 'patterns' is generic with no specific actions like those in anchor 3 ('1-2 concrete actions').	2 / 5
Completeness	It has both halves: an explicit 'Use when...' clause with concrete triggers, plus a stated what. However the 'what' ('Debugging and troubleshooting patterns') is a category rather than the concrete actions anchor 5 requires.	4 / 5
Trigger Term Quality	'NGINX reload errors, config generation bugs, controller sync problems' are natural trigger phrases users would say, but 'NIC' is internal jargon and obvious synonyms such as 'Ingress' or 'VirtualServer' are absent, so it falls short of anchor 5's comprehensive synonym coverage.	4 / 5
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The NGINX Ingress Controller niche plus specific triggers (reload errors, config generation, controller sync) is mostly distinct, but the generic leading triggers 'diagnosing failures, tracing issues' create minor overlap risk with any general debugging skill.	4 / 5
	Total	14 / 20 Passed

Validation

100%

Warnings & errors only

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: nginx/kubernetes-ingress
Path: .github/skills/nic-debugging/SKILL.md
Commit: 499c5f6

Reviewed: 10 days ago

Table of Contents

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