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user-story

Create user stories with Mike Cohn format and Gherkin acceptance criteria. Use when turning user needs into development-ready work with clear outcomes and testable conditions.

Quality

78%

Does it follow best practices?

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

Quality

Content

63%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

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

The body delivers genuinely actionable, example-rich guidance with a clear step sequence and validation checkpoints, but it is undermined by verbatim duplication between the Anti-Patterns and Common Pitfalls sections, placeholder/metadata padding, and references to bundle files that do not exist. Tightening the duplicated sections and shipping (or removing) the missing template.md and examples/sample.md would lift it substantially.

Suggestions

Add the referenced `template.md` and `examples/sample.md` to the bundle (or remove the references) so the promised fill-in structure and full examples are actually available.

Merge the "Anti-Patterns (What This Is NOT)" section into "Common Pitfalls" — Pitfalls 1, 2, and 4 repeat it nearly verbatim — and drop the empty "Dean's Work" placeholder and the footer metadata block (Skill type / Suggested filename / Suggested placement).

Move the "Optional Helper Script" section out of the numbered flow (e.g., after Step 5 or into a Helpers section) so the 5-step workflow reads as one continuous sequence.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The body is mostly efficient, skill-specific guidance, but it carries clear padding: the "Anti-Patterns" section duplicates Pitfalls 1, 2, and 4 nearly verbatim, the Purpose paragraph repeats the frontmatter intent word-for-word, "Dean's Work" is an empty placeholder ("[Link to relevant Dean Peters' Substack articles if applicable]"), and the footer metadata block adds no runtime instruction. Not 2 because the bulk is actionable checklist-style content rather than explanation of concepts Claude already knows; not 4 because the duplication and placeholders exceed "minor instances that could be trimmed."

3 / 5

Actionability

Concrete fill-in templates, per-step quality checks, ✅/❌ example pairs, a worked mini example, and a real executable helper script with a copy-pasteable command (scripts/user-story-template.py exists in the bundle). Not 5 because two promised resources — "Use `template.md` for the full fill-in structure" and "See `examples/sample.md` for full examples" — are absent from the bundle, leaving gaps in the concrete guidance.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

A clear 5-step sequence (gather context → write use case → write acceptance criteria → add summary → validate and refine) with per-step quality checks and a validation step that includes a split-if-too-big recovery path. Not 5 because the "Optional Helper Script" section interrupts the numbered flow between Steps 1 and 2, and Step 5's checks ("Read aloud to the team") are advisory rather than concretely verifiable.

4 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

Sections are well-organized and references are clearly signaled and one level deep, but scoring against the actual bundle structure shows two of the three referenced paths (`template.md`, `examples/sample.md`) do not exist — only scripts/user-story-template.py is present. Navigation is broken exactly where the skill promises split-out detail; the pitfalls and examples content also stays inline rather than in the referenced files. Not 4 because the on-disk structure does not match the references; not 2 because signaling and organization are otherwise sound.

3 / 5

Total

14

/

20

Passed

Description

83%Weight 40%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.

A strong description: it names concrete output formats, uses natural trigger vocabulary, and explicitly pairs a what-statement with a specific use-when clause. The only weaknesses are missing synonym trigger phrases and minor overlap risk with sibling story-related skills.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

"Create user stories with Mike Cohn format and Gherkin acceptance criteria" names the domain plus two concrete format-specific deliverables (Cohn story structure, Gherkin criteria), matching the 'several specific actions; minor gaps' anchor. Not 5 because it omits related actions the skill covers (validating, splitting oversized stories, writing summaries).

4 / 5

Completeness

Both parts are explicit: what ("Create user stories with Mike Cohn format and Gherkin acceptance criteria") and when ("Use when turning user needs into development-ready work with clear outcomes and testable conditions"), a concrete trigger phrase. Fits the 5 anchor rather than 4 because the when-clause names a specific triggering situation instead of a generic activity.

5 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

Natural keywords like "user stories," "user needs," "acceptance criteria," and "development-ready work" are present. Not 5 because common user phrasings are missing: "write a user story," the "As a / I want to / so that" format words, "Given/When/Then," and "backlog item."

4 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

"Mike Cohn format" and "Gherkin acceptance criteria" carve a clear PM-artifact niche distinct from generic writing skills. Not 5 because the body references a closely related sibling skill (user-story-splitting), so a request about an oversized story could plausibly trigger either — minor overlap risk with a closely related skill.

4 / 5

Total

17

/

20

Passed

Validation

93%

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

Validation — 15 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

frontmatter_unknown_keys

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

Warning

Total

15

/

16

Passed

Repository

whimzyLive/nightshift-ai

Path

plugins/sdlc/skills/user-story/SKILL.md

Reviewed

Table of Contents

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