creative-direction

Walk the user through four directional axes (tone register, aesthetic philosophy, audience relationship, sensory ambition) and produce a structured aesthetic brief that downstream content, copy, design, and art-direction skills consume as required input. The aesthetic depth layer, distinct from `creative-brief` (operational kickoff: scope, audience, deliverables, constraints). Use when a project needs aesthetic coherence across many small decisions and the user has only a vague feeling, or when multiple downstream aesthetic-producing skills need a shared brief. Triggers on creative direction, aesthetic direction, set the aesthetic, define the visual direction, what's the vibe, what's the tone, the four axes. Does NOT fire for a general kickoff brief (use `creative-brief`), tactical single-piece work, already-documented direction, purely functional output, or locked production-stage work.

Quality

85%

Does it follow best practices?

Run evals on this skill

Adds up to 20 points to the overall score

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Securityby

Low

Low-risk findings worth noting

Quality

Content

71%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.

A well-organized instruction-only skill with clear structure, actionable workflow, and exemplary progressive disclosure via real one-level-deep references. Main weakness is philosophical padding that could be trimmed for token efficiency.

Suggestions

Trim evocative but non-instructional taglines and per-position 'Signals X' notes to tighten the framework section and improve token efficiency.

Add an explicit checkpoint in the workflow after 'Surface tensions' (e.g., 'confirm or reconsider' with a recorded decision) to make the validation step mechanical rather than advisory.

Consider moving the 'Failure patterns' examples into the worked example reference or condensing them, since several duplicate guidance already in the workflow.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	Mostly efficient and avoids generic concept explanations, but carries philosophical padding (tagline 'Frameworks produce competent output', per-position 'Signals confidence and patience' style notes) that could be tightened.	3 / 5
Actionability	Provides a concrete 7-step workflow, named required inputs, a 6-section output structure, specific tension examples to flag, and template/example-file references; minor gaps remain where synthesis and tension-surfacing steps rely on judgment rather than mechanical execution.	4 / 5
Workflow Clarity	Steps are clearly sequenced (gather, walk axes, capture references, surface tensions, synthesize, output, hand off) with a soft confirm-or-reconsider checkpoint, but validation checkpoints are advisory rather than enforced feedback loops.	4 / 5
Progressive Disclosure	Well-structured body with a dedicated Reference files section linking three real one-level-deep files (axes-explained.md, brief-template.md, example-aesthetic-brief.md), with axis depth, template, and worked example appropriately split out.	5 / 5
	Total	16 / 20 Passed

Description

100%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.

A strong, well-distinguished description that concretely states capabilities, includes natural trigger phrases, explicitly covers what/when, and clearly separates itself from sibling skills via negative triggers. Voice is third person throughout.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Lists multiple concrete actions ('Walk the user through four directional axes', 'produce a structured aesthetic brief', 'downstream content, copy, design, and art-direction skills consume as required input') with the four axes named explicitly, giving comprehensive coverage.	5 / 5
Completeness	Explicitly answers both 'what' (walk four axes, produce structured aesthetic brief for downstream consumption) and 'when' (two concrete use-when scenarios) plus negative-trigger guidance, all with concrete trigger phrases.	5 / 5
Trigger Term Quality	Includes comprehensive natural trigger phrases with synonyms ('creative direction, aesthetic direction, set the aesthetic, define the visual direction, what's the vibe, what's the tone, the four axes') that users would naturally say.	5 / 5
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	Carves a clear niche by contrasting with `creative-brief` (operational kickoff) and stating it 'Does NOT fire for a general kickoff brief', tactical work, or locked production work, minimizing conflict risk.	5 / 5
	Total	20 / 20 Passed

Validation

93%

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 — 15 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	15 / 16 Passed

Repository: rampstackco/claude-skills
Path: skills/creative-direction/SKILL.md
Commit: a67dd34

Reviewed: 15 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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