saga-orchestration
Implement saga patterns for distributed transactions and cross-aggregate workflows. Use this skill when implementing distributed transactions across microservices where 2PC is unavailable, designing compensating actions for failed order workflows that span inventory, payment, and shipping services, building event-driven saga coordinators for travel booking systems that must roll back hotel, flight, and car rental reservations atomically, or debugging stuck saga states in production where compensation steps never complete.
94
92%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
Pending
No eval scenarios have been run
Passed
No known issues
Quality
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 an excellent skill description that clearly defines a specific niche (saga patterns for distributed transactions), provides concrete examples of when to use it across multiple realistic scenarios, and uses natural developer terminology throughout. The explicit 'Use this skill when...' clause with four detailed trigger conditions makes it highly actionable for skill selection. The only minor concern is the description's length, but the detail is substantive rather than padded.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Lists multiple specific concrete actions: implementing distributed transactions, designing compensating actions for order workflows, building event-driven saga coordinators for travel booking, and debugging stuck saga states. Mentions specific domains like inventory, payment, shipping, hotel, flight, and car rental reservations. | 3 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (implement saga patterns for distributed transactions and cross-aggregate workflows) and 'when' with an explicit 'Use this skill when...' clause listing four detailed trigger scenarios. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Excellent coverage of natural terms a user would say: 'saga', 'distributed transactions', '2PC', 'compensating actions', 'microservices', 'event-driven', 'saga coordinator', 'roll back', 'compensation steps', 'stuck saga states'. These are precisely the terms developers would use when seeking help with this pattern. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly distinctive niche focused specifically on saga patterns and distributed transaction compensation. The specific mention of saga coordinators, compensating actions, 2PC alternatives, and stuck saga states makes it very unlikely to conflict with general microservices or event-driven architecture skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 12 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
85%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This is a strong skill that provides actionable, well-structured guidance for implementing saga patterns. The three templates cover the most common patterns (orchestration, choreography, idempotency) with executable code, and the troubleshooting section addresses real production failure modes. The main weakness is moderate verbosity — the 'When to Use This Skill' section, some of the Core Concepts explanations, and the Inputs/Outputs section could be trimmed since Claude understands these distributed systems concepts.
Suggestions
Trim or remove the 'When to Use This Skill' section — this duplicates the skill description and Claude can infer applicability from the content itself.
Condense the 'Inputs and Outputs' section into a brief note or remove it; the templates already demonstrate what inputs are needed and what outputs are produced.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is reasonably well-structured but includes some unnecessary explanatory content that Claude would already know (e.g., the 'When to Use This Skill' section largely restates the description, the choreography vs orchestration diagram explains basic concepts). The compensation rules table and state table add value, but the overall document could be tightened by ~30%. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | The templates provide concrete, executable Python code for orchestration, choreography, and idempotency patterns. The code is complete enough to serve as copy-paste starting points with clear class structures, event handling, and compensation logic. The participant service example shows both the happy path and error handling. | 3 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The saga execution states are clearly defined, compensation rules cover all edge cases with explicit handling strategies, and the troubleshooting section addresses specific failure modes with code fixes. The compensation-always-publishes pattern and the reverse-order compensation requirement serve as explicit validation checkpoints. The feedback loop of retry → DLQ → manual intervention is clearly specified. | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The skill provides a clear overview with templates inline for immediate use, then appropriately defers the full abstract base class, timeout orchestrator, Prometheus instrumentation, and DLQ recovery worker to `references/advanced-patterns.md`. References are one level deep and clearly signaled. Related skills are listed for cross-referencing. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 11 / 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
27a7ed9
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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