Conciseness

The body is dense and prescriptive throughout, teaching a novel protocol rather than concepts Claude already knows; only a few rhetorical flourishes ("delivering exactly what was asked for when what was asked for was wrong", "so the user's judgment survives however the question was put") could be trimmed, matching the efficient-with-minor-trims anchor rather than the every-token-earns-its-place anchor.

Actionability

For an instruction-only skill the guidance is concretely executable: field pass conditions, a four-step hearing table with per-step completion evidence, a sectioned Scope Confirmation template, named storage carriers, and a numbered reference protocol. It stays below anchor 5 because there is no worked example (a sample convergence record or rendered confirmation) covering the common case.

Workflow Clarity

The Hearing Protocol is a clearly sequenced four-step process where every step carries explicit completion evidence as a checkpoint, Step 3 defines a re-ask feedback loop for values that fail their pass condition, and a Quality Checklist closes the process — matching the anchor for clear sequence with explicit validation, error-recovery loops, and checklists. This is an elicitation skill, so the destructive/batch cap does not apply.

Progressive Disclosure

The body is a well-organized overview and offloads per-field judgment detail to a single, clearly signaled, one-level-deep reference (references/criteria.md) that is a real file delivering exactly what the link promises (judgment rules, cost inputs, challenge intensity, solution-in-disguise test), matching the clear-overview anchor with no organization gaps found.

Specificity

Names three concrete, distinct actions ("Separates the outcome a change must produce from the requirements", "records what the user excluded", "bands cost from decision-relevant repository evidence") with only minor coverage gaps — the hearing/confirmation interaction and downstream consumption rules from the body are omitted, keeping it below the comprehensive anchor 5.

Completeness

Both parts are present: a clear, specific "what" (three concrete actions) and an explicit "Use when a requirement enters a workflow, before design begins" trigger. It falls short of anchor 5 because the when-clause covers a single trigger scenario without enumerated concrete trigger phrases or variations.

Trigger Term Quality

The trigger clause includes the core natural term "requirement" plus phase markers ("workflow", "design", "before design begins"), but misses common synonyms a user would naturally say ("scope", "requirements", "non-goals", "PRD") and "when a requirement enters a workflow" is process-internal phrasing rather than natural user language, matching the anchor for some relevant keywords missing common variations.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The pre-design requirements-convergence niche (outcome/requirement separation, exclusions, cost banding) is mostly distinct with a clear trigger boundary, but generic "requirement" triggers create minor overlap risk with closely related scoping, PRD-writing, or planning skills, so it is not the minimal-conflict anchor 5.