writing-skills

Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment

Quality

62%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

—

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

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

Quality

Content

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 well-structured, highly actionable skill that effectively teaches skill creation through a TDD lens. Its main weakness is verbosity—at ~2500 words it exceeds the recommended <500 word target significantly, with some redundant explanations of TDD concepts. The workflow clarity and progressive disclosure are excellent, with clear checkpoints and appropriate cross-referencing.

Suggestions

Reduce word count by 40-50%: consolidate the multiple TDD explanations into one section, remove redundant 'Iron Law' restatements, and compress the anti-patterns section into a table

Move the detailed 'Testing All Skill Types' and 'Bulletproofing Skills Against Rationalization' sections to separate reference files, keeping only summaries in SKILL.md

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The skill is comprehensive but verbose at ~2500 words. It includes some redundant explanations (e.g., TDD concepts explained multiple times) and sections that could be condensed. However, most content is actionable rather than explaining concepts Claude already knows.	2 / 3
Actionability	Provides concrete, executable guidance throughout: specific directory structures, YAML frontmatter examples, code blocks, checklists with checkboxes, and clear good/bad examples. The rationalization tables and red flags lists are immediately usable.	3 / 3
Workflow Clarity	Excellent workflow clarity with explicit RED-GREEN-REFACTOR phases, validation checkpoints ('STOP: Before Moving to Next Skill'), and a comprehensive checklist with TodoWrite instruction. The TDD mapping table clearly sequences the process with feedback loops.	3 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	Well-structured with clear sections, appropriate cross-references to other skills (testing-skills-with-subagents.md, anthropic-best-practices.md, persuasion-principles.md), and explicit guidance on when to inline vs. link to separate files. References are one level deep and clearly signaled.	3 / 3
	Total	11 / 12 Passed

Description

40%

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 focuses entirely on when to use the skill but completely omits what the skill actually does. While it correctly uses third person voice and includes a 'Use when...' clause, the lack of concrete capabilities and specific trigger terms makes it difficult for Claude to understand the skill's purpose or distinguish it from other skills.

Suggestions

Add specific capabilities before the 'Use when...' clause, e.g., 'Generates skill markdown files with proper YAML frontmatter, validates skill syntax, and tests skill behavior.'

Include more natural trigger terms users would say, such as 'SKILL.md', 'skill file', 'skill template', 'write a skill', or 'new skill'.

Clarify what 'verifying skills work' means with concrete actions like 'validates YAML structure', 'checks required fields', or 'runs skill tests'.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description uses vague language like 'creating', 'editing', and 'verifying' without specifying concrete actions. It doesn't explain what skills are, what creating/editing involves, or what verification entails.	1 / 3
Completeness	The description provides a 'Use when...' clause addressing when to use it, but the 'what does this do' portion is entirely missing. There's no explanation of what capabilities or actions the skill provides.	2 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	Contains some relevant keywords ('skills', 'deployment') but misses natural variations users might say like 'skill file', 'SKILL.md', 'skill template', or 'test skill'. The term 'skills' is somewhat generic.	2 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The term 'skills' provides some specificity to this domain, but 'creating', 'editing', and 'verifying' are generic actions that could overlap with many other skills. Without more specific triggers, it could conflict with general editing or testing skills.	2 / 3
	Total	7 / 12 Passed

Validation

90%

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 — 10 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
skill_md_line_count	SKILL.md is long (656 lines); consider splitting into references/ and linking	Warning

	Total	10 / 11 Passed

Repository: roman01la/skills-agents
Commit: 45417f2

Reviewed: 3 months ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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