postmortem-writing
Write effective blameless postmortems with root cause analysis, timelines, and action items. Use when conducting incident reviews, writing postmortem documents, or improving incident response processes.
81
71%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
99%
1.17xAverage score across 3 eval scenarios
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./plugins/incident-response/skills/postmortem-writing/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
100%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-crafted skill description that clearly defines its scope with specific deliverables (postmortems, root cause analysis, timelines, action items), includes an explicit 'Use when...' clause with natural trigger terms, and occupies a distinct niche. It follows the third-person voice convention and is concise without being vague.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: 'Write effective blameless postmortems', 'root cause analysis', 'timelines', and 'action items'. These are distinct, concrete deliverables. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both what ('Write effective blameless postmortems with root cause analysis, timelines, and action items') and when ('Use when conducting incident reviews, writing postmortem documents, or improving incident response processes') with an explicit 'Use when...' clause. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Includes strong natural keywords users would say: 'postmortems', 'root cause analysis', 'incident reviews', 'postmortem documents', 'incident response'. These cover the main terms someone needing this skill would use. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Occupies a clear niche around blameless postmortems and incident reviews. The terms 'postmortem', 'incident review', 'root cause analysis' are highly specific and unlikely to conflict with other skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 12 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
42%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
The skill provides highly actionable, realistic postmortem templates that Claude could immediately use, which is its primary strength. However, it is severely bloated with explanatory content Claude doesn't need (blameless culture philosophy, facilitation soft skills, basic do's/don'ts) and dumps everything into a single monolithic file rather than using progressive disclosure. Trimming the conceptual explanations and splitting templates into separate referenced files would dramatically improve this skill.
Suggestions
Remove or drastically reduce the 'Core Concepts' section (blameless culture table, postmortem triggers) - Claude already understands these concepts and they consume significant tokens.
Move each template (Standard, 5 Whys, Quick) into separate referenced files (e.g., STANDARD_TEMPLATE.md, FIVE_WHYS_TEMPLATE.md) and keep only a brief overview with links in the main SKILL.md.
Remove the Facilitation Guide section entirely - soft skills like 'encourage quiet participants' and 'redirect blame to systems' are not actionable instructions for Claude writing a document.
Add a validation checklist step (e.g., 'Before finalizing, verify: all timeline entries have timestamps, every action item has an owner and due date, root cause analysis goes at least 3 levels deep').
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is extremely verbose at ~300+ lines. It explains concepts Claude already knows (blameless culture philosophy, what postmortem triggers are, facilitation tips like 'encourage quiet participants'). The comparison table for blame-focused vs blameless, the 'When to Use This Skill' section, and extensive facilitation guide all add tokens without teaching Claude anything new. The templates themselves are useful but could be much more compact. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | The skill provides fully concrete, copy-paste-ready templates with specific examples including realistic timelines, action item tables with owners and dates, and complete markdown structures. The 5 Whys template and Quick Postmortem template are immediately usable with clear formatting. | 3 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The postmortem timeline (Day 0 through Quarterly) provides a clear sequence, and the meeting structure has time-boxed steps. However, there are no explicit validation checkpoints - no step to verify the postmortem is complete before finalizing, no checklist to ensure all sections are filled, and no feedback loop for reviewing action item quality before publishing. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | This is a monolithic wall of text with everything inline. Three full templates, a facilitation guide, anti-patterns table, and best practices are all in one file. The templates should be in separate referenced files, with the main SKILL.md providing an overview and navigation. There are no references to external files at all. | 1 / 3 |
Total | 7 / 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
- wshobson/agents
- Commit
91fe43e
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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