writing-plans

Use when you have a spec or requirements for a multi-step task, before touching code

Quality

50%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

Pending

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/writing-plans/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

14%

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

This description is critically incomplete—it only provides a vague 'when' trigger without explaining what the skill actually does. The lack of any concrete actions or outputs makes it nearly impossible for Claude to confidently select this skill over others. The terms used are too generic to carve out a distinct niche among potentially many planning/coding-related skills.

Suggestions

Add explicit capability statements describing what the skill does, e.g., 'Breaks down a spec or requirements document into an ordered implementation plan with discrete, testable steps.'

Include more specific trigger terms and variations users might say, such as 'implementation plan', 'task breakdown', 'planning', 'decompose requirements', 'step-by-step plan'.

Rewrite to clearly answer both 'what' and 'when', e.g., 'Decomposes specifications and requirements into ordered implementation steps with dependencies and acceptance criteria. Use when the user has a spec, PRD, or requirements document and wants to plan implementation before writing code.'

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description contains no concrete actions at all. It doesn't say what the skill does—there are no verbs describing capabilities like 'generates', 'plans', 'breaks down', etc. 'Multi-step task' is extremely vague.	1 / 3
Completeness	The description only addresses 'when' (when you have a spec/requirements before coding) but completely omits 'what' the skill actually does. There is no explanation of the skill's capabilities or outputs.	1 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	It includes some relevant terms like 'spec', 'requirements', and 'before touching code' which could naturally appear in user requests. However, it misses common variations like 'plan', 'design', 'architecture', 'breakdown', 'implementation plan', etc.	2 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	'Multi-step task' and 'spec or requirements' are extremely broad and could overlap with virtually any planning, architecture, project management, or coding skill. There is no clear niche defined.	1 / 3
	Total	5 / 12 Passed

Implementation

85%

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

This is a strong, well-structured skill that provides highly actionable guidance for writing implementation plans. Its greatest strength is the concrete task template with TDD cycle, the self-review checklist, and the clear execution handoff. Minor weaknesses include some repeated principles (DRY/YAGNI/TDD mentioned twice) and general software design advice in the File Structure section that Claude likely already knows.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The skill is mostly efficient and provides domain-specific guidance Claude wouldn't inherently know (plan structure, task granularity, self-review checklist). However, some sections are slightly verbose — e.g., the 'No Placeholders' section lists many examples that could be tighter, and principles like DRY/YAGNI/TDD are repeated multiple times. The 'File Structure' section includes some general software design advice Claude already knows.	2 / 3
Actionability	The skill provides fully concrete, copy-paste-ready templates for plan headers, task structures with exact markdown formatting, specific file path conventions, exact test commands with expected outputs, and commit message formats. The task structure template is a complete executable example showing the TDD cycle.	3 / 3
Workflow Clarity	The workflow is clearly sequenced: scope check → file structure mapping → task decomposition → plan writing → self-review → execution handoff. Each phase has explicit steps, the self-review section serves as a validation checkpoint with a concrete checklist, and the execution handoff provides clear branching paths with required sub-skills.	3 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	The skill is well-organized with clear sections that build on each other. It references external sub-skills (subagent-driven-development, executing-plans, brainstorming) at appropriate points without nesting deeply. The content is appropriately scoped for a single SKILL.md file — detailed enough to be self-contained but delegates execution to other skills.	3 / 3
	Total	11 / 12 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 — 11 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository: obra/superpowers
Commit: 6efe32c

Reviewed: 4 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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