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user-story-splitting

Break a large story or epic into smaller deliverable stories using proven split patterns. Use when backlog items are too big for estimation, sequencing, or independent release.

59

Quality

69%

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tessl review fix ./plugins/sdlc/skills/user-story-splitting/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

56%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 skill provides a comprehensive and well-structured guide to story splitting with clear patterns and examples, but suffers from significant verbosity—explaining agile concepts Claude already knows (why to split stories, what anti-patterns are, when to use/not use). The workflow is solid with validation steps, but the content would benefit greatly from trimming explanatory sections and actually providing the referenced bundle files (template.md, examples/sample.md).

Suggestions

Remove or drastically reduce the 'Why Split Stories?', 'When to Use This', 'When NOT to Use This', and 'Key Concepts' preamble sections—Claude understands agile principles. Start with the splitting patterns directly.

Provide the referenced template.md and examples/sample.md files in the bundle, or inline the essential template structure if the files don't exist.

Consolidate the 5 pitfalls into a compact table or short bullet list rather than giving each its own headed section with Symptom/Consequence/Fix format.

Move the detailed pattern examples to a separate reference file and keep only a summary table of the 8 patterns with one-line descriptions in the main SKILL.md.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

Significantly verbose. The 'Why Split Stories?' section, 'When to Use This,' 'When NOT to Use This,' anti-patterns explanation, and extensive pitfall descriptions all explain concepts Claude already understands well. The 'Key Concepts' section alone is substantial padding before any actionable content begins. The purpose section restates the description. Much could be cut without losing actionable value.

2 / 5

Actionability

The 8 splitting patterns each have concrete examples with original stories and resulting splits, making them quite actionable. The step-by-step process (identify, apply patterns, write splits, validate) is clear. However, the examples are illustrative rather than fully executable artifacts—there's no complete end-to-end worked example inline, and it references template.md and examples/sample.md which aren't provided.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

The 4-step workflow (Identify → Apply Splitting Logic → Write Split Stories → Validate) is clearly sequenced. Step 4 provides explicit validation questions with a clear 'if any answer is no, revise' feedback loop. Minor gap: the instruction to 'work through the 8 patterns in order and stop when you find one that applies' could be more nuanced—sometimes multiple patterns apply. Not destructive/batch, so no cap applies.

4 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

References template.md, examples/sample.md, and related skills, but none of these bundle files are provided. The skill inlines a large amount of content (all 8 patterns with examples, 5 pitfalls, key concepts) that could be better organized across files. The patterns and pitfalls sections could be in separate reference files with the SKILL.md serving as a leaner overview.

3 / 5

Total

13

/

20

Passed

Description

82%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 well-structured description that clearly communicates both what the skill does and when to use it, with an explicit 'Use when' clause containing concrete trigger scenarios. Its main weakness is that it could be more specific about the concrete actions or split patterns it employs, and it misses a few natural synonyms users might use (e.g., 'user story', 'slice', 'decompose').

Suggestions

Add more specific actions or examples of split patterns (e.g., 'workflow steps, business rule variations, data variations, CRUD operations') to increase specificity.

Include additional natural trigger terms like 'user story', 'slice', 'decompose', 'break down', or 'agile' to improve keyword coverage.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

Names the domain (story/epic splitting) and describes the core action ('break a large story or epic into smaller deliverable stories using proven split patterns'), but doesn't enumerate what those split patterns are or list multiple concrete actions beyond the single high-level one.

3 / 5

Completeness

Clearly answers both 'what' ('Break a large story or epic into smaller deliverable stories using proven split patterns') and 'when' ('Use when backlog items are too big for estimation, sequencing, or independent release') with explicit trigger phrases.

5 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

Includes good natural terms like 'story', 'epic', 'backlog items', 'estimation', 'sequencing', 'independent release', and 'split patterns'. Missing some common synonyms like 'user story', 'decompose', 'break down', 'slice', or 'agile'.

4 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Occupies a clear niche around agile story splitting with specific triggers (epic, story, backlog items, estimation, split patterns) that are unlikely to conflict with other skills.

5 / 5

Total

17

/

20

Passed

Validation

90%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation10 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

frontmatter_unknown_keys

Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata

Warning

Total

10

/

11

Passed

Repository
whimzyLive/nightshift-ai
Reviewed

Table of Contents

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