CtrlK
BlogDocsLog inGet started
Tessl Logo
SkillPublic

octopus-research

Thorough research across multiple sources — use for complex topics needing broad synthesis

Quality

65%

Does it follow best practices?

Run evals on this skill

Adds up to 20 points to the overall score

View guide
SecuritybySnyk

Low

Low-risk findings worth noting

Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./.claude/skills/skill-deep-research/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

62%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 delivers a well-gated, highly actionable five-step workflow with explicit validation and error recovery — workflow clarity is excellent. Its weaknesses are token efficiency (the same enforcement message is repeated five-plus times, and Error Handling duplicates inline step rules) and navigation (a dangling, unpathed reference to skill-security-framing.md in a bundle with no reference files, plus a duplicated Antigravity banner line).

Suggestions

State the enforcement contract once (the HARD-GATE) and delete its restatements in Step 3's prohibited list, the 'This is NOT optional' line, Step 4, and Error Handling — a single authoritative statement preserves the gate while cutting substantial tokens.

Drop the separate Error Handling section or reduce it to the cases not already covered inline in Steps 2 and 4, which currently repeat those rules verbatim.

Fix the dangling reference: give skill-security-framing.md a real path/link in a references/ directory (or inline the relevant framing rules), and remove the duplicated banner lines ('🟡 Antigravity CLI' / '🧭 Antigravity CLI' both bound to ${agy_status}).

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The single prohibition 'must call orchestrate.sh, never research directly' is restated at least five times: the HARD-GATE ('The ONLY valid execution path is: Bash → orchestrate.sh probe'), Step 3's 'CRITICAL: You are PROHIBITED from' list, 'This is NOT optional. You MUST use the Bash tool', Step 4's 'DO NOT substitute with direct research', and Error Handling's 'Never fall back to direct research'. The Error Handling section also duplicates rules already stated inline in Steps 2 and 4. This matches anchor 2 ('Noticeably verbose; several unnecessary explanations or padded sections'); not 3 because the redundancy is pervasive rather than occasional.

2 / 5

Actionability

Provides copy-paste-ready commands: the check-providers.sh detection snippet, the exact orchestrate.sh invocation with explicit intensity-mapping rules ('light → quick, exhaustive → deep; quick, standard and deep pass through unchanged'), the synthesis-file find command, and a complete AskUserQuestion block. Matches anchor 4 ('Mostly executable guidance; concrete code or commands with minor gaps') — templated placeholders like ${focus_choice} and taskId: "..." keep it just short of fully copy-paste ready.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

Five explicitly gated steps with blocking checkpoints ('DO NOT PROCEED TO STEP 2 until all questions are answered', 'DO NOT PROCEED TO STEP 3 until banner displayed'), an explicit validation gate (Step 4 synthesis-file check), and feedback loops on failure ('Report error to user / Show logs from ~/.claude-octopus/logs/ / DO NOT proceed') plus a per-step Error Handling section. Matches anchor 5 ('Clear sequence with explicit validation steps; feedback loops for error recovery').

5 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

The body is ~205 lines with no bundle files provided, and its one reference — 'apply security framing from **skill-security-framing.md**' — has no path, no link, and no such file exists in the bundle. Step structure itself is well-organized, matching anchor 3 ('Some structure but could be better organized; references present but not clearly signaled'); not 4 because the sole reference is unresolvable, not 2 because nothing large is misfiled inline.

3 / 5

Total

14

/

20

Passed

Description

53%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 answers both 'what' and 'when' but at a high level of abstraction: the capability is named generically and the trigger guidance ("use for complex topics needing broad synthesis") doesn't include the concrete phrases users would actually say. Notably, the frontmatter's separate `trigger` field contains exactly those concrete phrases ("research this topic", "investigate how X works"), which the description itself lacks.

Suggestions

Add concrete actions to the description, e.g. "Orchestrates multi-provider research by dispatching probes to external AI CLIs and synthesizes findings into a single report" — currently the mechanism is unstated.

Fold the natural trigger phrases from the `trigger` frontmatter field into the description's 'when' clause, e.g. "Use when the user asks to research a topic, investigate how X works, or compare approaches to Y".

Add distinguishing scope cues (multi-source synthesis, external providers) so it is less likely to collide with built-in web-search or general research skills.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

"Thorough research across multiple sources" names the domain but the actions are generic; the actual mechanism (multi-provider orchestration via orchestrate.sh, synthesis report generation) is never stated. This matches anchor 2 ('Names the domain but actions are minimal or generic') and falls short of anchor 3, which requires 1-2 concrete actions.

2 / 5

Completeness

Both parts are present: the what ("Thorough research across multiple sources") and the when ("use for complex topics needing broad synthesis"). The 'when' clause is explicit but abstract rather than concrete trigger phrases, matching anchor 4; not 5 because it lacks concrete user-sayable triggers.

4 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

"research", "multiple sources", and "complex topics" are relevant keywords, but common natural variations users would say ("investigate", "explore", "deep dive", "look into") are missing from the description. Matches anchor 3 ('Some relevant keywords but missing common variations or synonyms'); not 4 because coverage is thin rather than good-with-a-few-gaps.

3 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

"complex topics needing broad synthesis" scopes it somewhat, but "research across multiple sources" is a broad domain that would overlap with any general research or web-search skill. Matches anchor 3 ('Somewhat specific but could still overlap with similar skills'); not 4 because the overlap risk with research-type skills is more than minor.

3 / 5

Total

12

/

20

Passed

Validation

93%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 15 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

frontmatter_unknown_keys

Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata

Warning

Total

15

/

16

Passed

Repository

nyldn/claude-octopus

Path

.claude/skills/skill-deep-research/SKILL.md

Reviewed

Table of Contents

Is this your skill?

If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.