cross-repo-release-preflight

Fail fast when a release workflow depends on credentials or access to a second repository.

Quality

45%

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 ./.squad/skills/cross-repo-release-preflight/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

32%

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

The description is too terse and lacks an explicit 'Use when...' clause, making it difficult for Claude to know when to select this skill. While it identifies a specific niche (failing fast on cross-repo credential dependencies in release workflows), it doesn't enumerate concrete actions or provide natural trigger terms that users would employ.

Suggestions

Add an explicit 'Use when...' clause, e.g., 'Use when setting up or debugging release workflows that depend on external repository access, deploy tokens, or cross-repo credentials.'

Expand the 'what' portion to list specific actions, e.g., 'Validates release workflow configurations, checks for missing credentials, detects cross-repository access dependencies, and surfaces errors early before deployment.'

Include natural trigger terms users might say, such as 'CI/CD', 'deploy', 'GitHub Actions', 'access token', 'permissions error', or 'cross-repo dependency'.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description names a specific domain (release workflows) and a concrete action ('fail fast'), but it only describes one narrow behavior rather than listing multiple concrete actions the skill performs.	2 / 3
Completeness	The description partially addresses 'what' (fail fast on credential/access dependencies) but has no explicit 'Use when...' clause or equivalent trigger guidance, and the 'what' itself is quite narrow and unclear about the full scope of the skill.	1 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	Includes some relevant terms like 'release workflow', 'credentials', and 'second repository', but misses common user variations such as 'CI/CD', 'deploy', 'access token', 'permissions', 'cross-repo', or 'GitHub Actions'.	2 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The combination of 'release workflow' and 'credentials or access to a second repository' is fairly specific, but could overlap with general CI/CD skills, release management skills, or credential management skills without clearer boundaries.	2 / 3
	Total	7 / 12 Passed

Implementation

57%

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

This skill provides a solid conceptual framework for cross-repo release workflow validation with good organization and relevant examples. However, it falls short on actionability by lacking any executable YAML workflow snippets or shell commands that Claude could directly use or adapt. The workflow sequence is implicit rather than explicitly ordered, which is a gap for a skill involving potentially destructive cross-repo operations.

Suggestions

Add a concrete YAML workflow snippet showing the preflight job structure with secret validation and repo reachability checks, so Claude has a copy-paste-ready template.

Restructure the Patterns section into an explicitly numbered workflow sequence (e.g., Step 1: Preflight validation → Step 2: Sync gate check → Step 3: Cross-repo checkout → Step 4: Validate and push) with validation checkpoints between steps.

Include a minimal executable shell command or GitHub Actions step for secret existence checking (e.g., the `if: env.TOKEN != ''` pattern) to make the guidance immediately actionable.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The content is reasonably efficient and doesn't over-explain basic concepts, but some bullet points are somewhat verbose and could be tightened. Phrases like 'Add a dedicated preflight job before the first cross-repo checkout' are clear but could be more concise. The patterns section has some redundancy between related bullets.	2 / 3
Actionability	The skill provides specific patterns and concrete examples referencing real workflow files and repos, but lacks executable code. There are no actual YAML workflow snippets, shell commands, or copy-paste-ready GitHub Actions job definitions. The guidance is specific in concept but not executable—Claude would need to synthesize the implementation from descriptions rather than adapting concrete templates.	2 / 3
Workflow Clarity	The patterns implicitly describe a sequence (preflight → validate secret → validate reachability → sync gate → publish), but this sequence is never explicitly laid out as ordered steps with validation checkpoints. The bullets are unordered recommendations rather than a clear workflow. For a skill involving destructive cross-repo operations, the lack of explicit feedback loops (validate → fix → retry) caps this at 2.	2 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	For a standalone skill with no bundle files, the content is well-organized into clear sections (Context, Patterns, Examples, Anti-Patterns) that are easy to scan. The structure is appropriate for the complexity level, and references to external files like `publish-plugins.yml` and `docs/RELEASE-STRATEGY.md` are concrete and one-level deep.	3 / 3
	Total	9 / 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
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	10 / 11 Passed

Repository: sbroenne/mcp-server-excel
Commit: e8764a6

Reviewed: 3 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation

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