CtrlK
BlogDocsLog inGet started
Tessl Logo

optimize-skill-instructions

Review and improve your skill with actionable recommendations. Reviews the whole bundle, validates syntax and references, explains rubric, shows before/after scores, and edits the SKILL.md and its reference docs. Use when reviewing skill quality, improving a SKILL.md or its reference files, checking scoring dimensions and quick wins, auditing progressive disclosure and orphaned bundle files, generating improvement recommendations, running a post-edit quality audit, creating approval-gated change proposals, or automating the skill review workflow. For the full optimization cycle (review + evals + improve), use `optimize-skill-performance-and-instructions`.

88

1.14x
Quality

76%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

89%

1.14x

Average score across 29 eval scenarios

SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No findings from the security scan

Fix and improve this skill with Tessl

tessl review fix ./skill-optimizer/skills/optimize-skill-instructions/SKILL.md

The canonical home for this skill is tessl/skill-optimizer

SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

70%Scale 1-5

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 workflow skill with clear phasing, strong validation checkpoints, and good actionability through concrete commands and templates. Its main weaknesses are moderate verbosity (some sections explain concepts Claude already knows, like what orphaned files are) and the progressive disclosure could be improved by actually having the referenced REFERENCE.md in the bundle and potentially splitting out the recommendation template and validation checklist into separate reference files.

Suggestions

Trim explanatory text that Claude already knows — e.g., 'Files in the bundle that are never referenced add bloat without providing value' and the general explanation of trade-offs. Trust Claude to understand why orphaned files are bad.

Ensure the referenced `references/REFERENCE.md` actually exists in the bundle, or inline the critical validation snippets (ast.parse, node --check) directly to make Phase 4 self-contained.

Consider moving the Progressive Disclosure guidelines and the recommendation block template into a reference file to shorten the main SKILL.md and practice what the skill preaches about progressive disclosure.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The skill is moderately efficient but includes some unnecessary verbosity. The 'Guiding Principles' section and some explanatory text (e.g., explaining what orphaned files are, explaining trade-offs) could be tightened. The progressive disclosure section repeats concepts Claude would understand. However, most content is instructional rather than explanatory.

3 / 5

Actionability

Provides concrete commands (`tessl review run`, `tessl review fix` with flags), executable bash snippets for orphan detection, specific recommendation block templates, and priority table formats. Minor gaps: the validation phase references a REFERENCE.md for code snippets rather than inlining them, and some steps like 'Parse output for scores' are somewhat vague about how to parse.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

Excellent 8-phase workflow with clear sequencing, explicit validation checkpoints (Phase 4 before applying, Phase 8 after), feedback loops (fix → re-validate → re-review), priority ordering (Critical → High → Medium → Low), and a verification step comparing before/after scores. The approval gate before applying changes and the re-run verification are strong validation patterns.

5 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

References REFERENCE.md for validation code snippets and mentions the create-review-plugin skill, which is good. However, no bundle files were provided, so the REFERENCE.md reference is unverifiable. The skill itself is fairly long (~150 lines) and could benefit from splitting the Progressive Disclosure section and the recommendation template into reference files. The content is reasonably structured with headers but everything is inlined in one file.

3 / 5

Total

15

/

20

Passed

Description

83%Scale 1-5

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 is a strong description that clearly communicates both what the skill does and when to use it, with an extensive list of trigger scenarios. It effectively distinguishes itself from a related optimization skill. Minor improvements could include slightly more natural/colloquial trigger terms and tightening the list of actions to reduce redundancy.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

Lists several specific actions: 'validates syntax and references', 'explains rubric', 'shows before/after scores', 'edits the SKILL.md and its reference docs', 'reviews the whole bundle'. These are concrete but some overlap and could be more precisely delineated.

4 / 5

Completeness

Clearly answers both 'what' (reviews bundles, validates syntax, explains rubric, shows scores, edits files) and 'when' with an explicit and extensive 'Use when...' clause listing multiple concrete trigger scenarios. Also includes a boundary distinction with the optimize-skill-performance-and-instructions skill.

5 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

Includes many natural trigger terms: 'skill quality', 'SKILL.md', 'scoring dimensions', 'quick wins', 'progressive disclosure', 'orphaned bundle files', 'improvement recommendations', 'quality audit', 'approval-gated change proposals'. Missing some simpler synonyms a user might say like 'fix my skill', 'skill feedback', or 'lint skill'.

4 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The description carves out a clear niche around skill review and improvement, and explicitly distinguishes itself from the 'optimize-skill-performance-and-instructions' skill for the full optimization cycle. Minor overlap risk exists with general code review or documentation improvement skills, but the SKILL.md-specific terminology reduces this significantly.

4 / 5

Total

17

/

20

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.

Validation11 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository
tesslio/product-plugins
Reviewed

Table of Contents

Is this your skill?

If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.