Conciseness

The body is efficient with no explanation of concepts Claude already knows, but the 'Rule Configurations' section re-demonstrates frontmatter already shown in 'File Structure' and the frontmatter-fields table, and those duplicated examples could be trimmed. Not a 3 because the padding is limited to that one redundant section; not a 5 because the redundancy is real.

Actionability

Concrete, copy-paste-ready guidance throughout: the .mdc template, frontmatter field table, example globs, and two complete example rules. Not a 5 because 'Under 50 lines' in Best Practices directly contradicts 'Content under 500 lines' in the Checklist, leaving the actual length limit ambiguous.

Workflow Clarity

A clear logical sequence exists (gather requirements, infer from context or ask, write the file, verify via checklist) and the closing checklist acts as a validation checkpoint. Not a 5 because the checkpoints are implicit in section ordering rather than explicit numbered steps with error-recovery guidance; not a 3 because the checklist and required-questions flow do provide verification.

Progressive Disclosure

No bundle files exist and the body has no dangling references; sections are well-organized with clear headers and the content is self-contained. It scores 4 rather than 5 because at ~156 lines everything is inline — the two full example rules could live in a references file — and the under-50-line simple-skill exception does not apply.

Specificity

The trigger clause lists several specific actions ('create a rule, add coding standards, set up project conventions, configure file-specific patterns, create RULE.md files'), which would base at 4, but they are all variants of 'create' with no edit/update coverage, and the rubric's second-person penalty applies to 'Use when you want to create a rule', reducing the score by 1.

Completeness

Clearly answers 'what' ('Create Cursor rules for persistent AI guidance') and 'when' with an explicit 'Use when' clause enumerating six concrete trigger conditions, matching the anchor requiring both with concrete trigger phrases rather than the 4 anchor's 'when could be more explicit'.

Trigger Term Quality

Comprehensive natural-term coverage including synonyms ('rule', 'coding standards', 'project conventions', 'patterns') and concrete file paths ('.cursor/rules/', 'RULE.md', 'AGENTS.md'), matching the anchor that requires synonyms plus file extensions/paths. It does not fit the 4 anchor because only trivial variations are missing.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The Cursor-rules niche is clear and '.cursor/rules/' is a distinct trigger, but the 'AGENTS.md', 'RULE.md', and generic 'coding standards' triggers create minor overlap risk with other agent-config or conventions skills, fitting the 'mostly distinct; minor overlap risk' anchor rather than the minimal-conflict anchor at 5.