crafting-effective-readmes
Use when writing or improving README files. Not all READMEs are the same — provides templates and guidance matched to your audience and project type.
78
68%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
92%
1.12xAverage score across 3 eval scenarios
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./dist/plugins/crafting-effective-readmes/skills/crafting-effective-readmes/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
75%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 has a clear 'Use when' trigger and targets a distinct niche (README files), which are its main strengths. However, it lacks specific concrete actions beyond 'templates and guidance' and could benefit from more natural trigger terms and variations. The use of second person ('your audience') should be noted as a minor voice issue, though it doesn't severely impact clarity.
Suggestions
Add specific concrete actions like 'generate project READMEs with installation instructions, usage examples, API references, badges, and contributing guidelines'.
Include more natural trigger term variations such as 'README.md', 'project documentation', 'repo description', or 'getting started docs' to improve keyword coverage.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Names the domain (README files) and mentions some actions ('writing or improving', 'provides templates and guidance'), but doesn't list specific concrete actions like 'generate badges, create table of contents, add installation instructions, structure API documentation sections'. | 2 / 3 |
Completeness | Explicitly answers both 'what' (provides templates and guidance for README files matched to audience and project type) and 'when' ('Use when writing or improving README files'). The 'Use when...' clause is present and clear. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes 'README' as a strong natural keyword, but misses common variations like 'README.md', 'project documentation', 'repo docs', 'getting started guide'. The terms 'templates' and 'guidance' are somewhat relevant but not what users typically say when requesting help. | 2 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | README files are a clear, specific niche. The description is unlikely to conflict with general documentation skills or code writing skills because it explicitly scopes to README files with audience-matched templates. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 10 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
62%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 well-structured workflow for README creation with good audience-awareness and clear task routing. Its main weakness is the lack of concrete output examples — showing a sample README snippet or before/after would significantly improve actionability. The referenced templates and supporting files are well-signaled but cannot be verified without the bundle.
Suggestions
Add at least one concrete example of a generated README section (e.g., a short OSS README snippet) to improve actionability from process description to executable guidance.
Include a brief before/after example showing how a weak README description becomes a strong one, giving Claude a concrete quality target.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | Mostly efficient but includes some unnecessary scaffolding. The tables and step-by-step process are useful but the 'Always Ask' step and some of the task-specific questions feel like padding for what Claude could infer. The content could be tightened. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | Provides structured guidance with clear questions to ask and a decision matrix for project types, but lacks concrete examples of actual README output. No example README snippets or before/after comparisons are provided — it describes a process rather than showing executable results. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The three-step process (Identify Task → Task-Specific Questions → Final Check) is clearly sequenced with distinct paths for creating, adding, updating, and reviewing. Each path has explicit checkpoints and the workflow is unambiguous for a non-destructive content generation task. | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | References to templates (templates/oss.md, etc.) and supporting files (section-checklist.md, style-guide.md, using-references.md) are well-signaled and one level deep. However, no bundle files were provided, so we cannot verify these references exist. The main content is reasonably sized but the project types table could potentially be offloaded to a reference file. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 12 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.
Validation — 11 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
No warnings or errors.
- Repository
- softaworks/agent-toolkit
- Commit
3027f20
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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