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systematic-debugging

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes

66

Quality

78%

Does it follow best practices?

Run evals on this skill

Adds up to 20 points to the overall score

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SecuritybySnyk

High

Do not use without reviewing

Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./skills/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md

The canonical home for this skill is jbvc/systematic-debugging

SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

73%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-sequenced debugging methodology with strong workflow clarity, explicit validation checkpoints, and good progressive-disclosure signaling. The main weaknesses are rhetorical repetition that dilutes token efficiency and references to bundle files that are not actually present in the skill directory.

Suggestions

Trim redundant rhetorical reinforcement (e.g., merge 'Red Flags' and 'Common Rationalizations', which repeat the same anti-guessing message) to tighten token efficiency.

Create the referenced root-cause-tracing.md, defense-in-depth.md, and condition-based-waiting.md files (or remove the references) so progressive-disclosure links resolve to real content.

Move the multi-component instrumentation example into defense-in-depth.md or a dedicated reference, keeping SKILL.md as a lean overview.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The body is mostly efficient procedural guidance, but repeated rhetorical reinforcement ('Violating the letter of this process is violating the spirit', the Iron Law box, the Red Flags and Common Rationalizations sections) restates the same anti-guessing message multiple times, adding padding beyond what Claude needs.

3 / 5

Actionability

It gives concrete executable guidance — multi-component instrumentation snippets, bash logging examples, and specific investigative steps — with only minor gaps where guidance stays at the level of instructions rather than commands.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

The Four Phases are explicitly sequenced with a 'MUST complete each phase before proceeding' gate, validation checkpoints at every phase, and a clear feedback loop (failed hypothesis -> new hypothesis; 3+ failures -> question architecture).

5 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

It is well-structured with clear sections and signals three one-level-deep bundle files (root-cause-tracing.md, defense-in-depth.md, condition-based-waiting.md); however those referenced files are not present in the bundle, so the disclosed references cannot be verified and there is some inlined material that could live in those files.

4 / 5

Total

16

/

20

Passed

Description

83%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 concise, third-person description with strong natural trigger terms and a distinctive 'before proposing fixes' positioning. It could be elevated to a perfect score by making the 'what' (the systematic investigation actions) as explicit as the 'when'.

Suggestions

Add 1-2 concrete actions to make the 'what' explicit, e.g. 'Investigate root cause through reproduction, evidence gathering, and hypothesis testing before proposing fixes.'

Consider noting when NOT to use it to sharpen distinctiveness against other debugging or testing skills.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description names the domain (bugs, test failures, unexpected behavior) and concrete triggers but does not enumerate multiple specific debugging actions (e.g., reproduce, trace, hypothesize), leaving minor coverage gaps.

4 / 5

Completeness

It answers 'when' explicitly ('Use when encountering...before proposing fixes') and implies 'what' (systematic debugging), but the 'what' is implied by the trigger rather than stated as a concrete capability, so it is not a fully explicit what+when pair.

4 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

It surfaces the natural phrases users say when they need this skill — 'bug', 'test failure', 'unexpected behavior' — with broad coverage of common variations across the debugging domain.

5 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The 'before proposing fixes' framing carves a clear niche tied to a distinct trigger condition with only minor overlap risk against general coding skills.

4 / 5

Total

17

/

20

Passed

Validation

100%

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

Validation16 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository
roman01la/skills-agents
Reviewed

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