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team-communication-protocols

Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid. Use this skill when establishing communication norms for a newly spawned team, when deciding whether to send a direct message or a broadcast, when a team-lead needs to review and approve an implementer's plan before work begins, when orchestrating a graceful team shutdown after all tasks are complete, or when debugging why teammates are not coordinating correctly at integration points.

Quality

90%

Does it follow best practices?

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Adds up to 20 points to the overall score

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SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No findings from the security scan

SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

85%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.

A highly actionable, well-structured body with concrete JSON examples and clearly sequenced approval/shutdown workflows including rejection feedback loops. Its one real defect is progressive disclosure: the bundled references/messaging-patterns.md template library is orphaned — never referenced, linked, or hinted at in the body — so readers cannot find it.

Suggestions

Add a short 'Message templates' section (e.g. under Message Type Selection or a new section) linking to [messaging-patterns.md](references/messaging-patterns.md) with one-line descriptions of the template categories (task assignment, blocker report, shutdown acknowledgment), so the bundle's ready-to-use templates are discoverable.

Consolidate the duplicated shutdown-rejection guidance: either trim 'Handling Rejections' to a pointer at the Troubleshooting entry or vice versa, keeping the retry sequence in one place.

Trim the broadcast-cost guidance that appears in both 'Why sparingly?' and the Troubleshooting anti-pattern entry, and drop the intro paragraph that restates the frontmatter description verbatim.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The body is efficient — an anti-patterns table, terse JSON examples, and no teaching of concepts Claude already knows — but there is minor redundancy that could be trimmed: the intro paragraph restates the description, broadcast-cost guidance appears both in "Why sparingly?" and in the Troubleshooting entry, and shutdown-rejection handling is covered in both "Handling Rejections" and Troubleshooting. That fits the 'efficient; minor instances of over-explanation' anchor rather than the 'every token earns its place' anchor.

4 / 5

Actionability

Every section gives copy-paste-ready artifacts: complete JSON payloads for all three message types, approve/reject plan_approval_response examples, the exact config path `~/.claude/teams/{team-name}/config.json` with its structure, and concrete step-by-step fixes for each troubleshooting scenario. This matches the 'fully executable; copy-paste ready' anchor with common cases covered.

5 / 5

Workflow Clarity

The plan approval workflow (steps 1-4 with approve/reject decision branches) and the graceful shutdown sequence (steps 1-5 with explicit rejection handling, waiting, and retry) are clearly sequenced with feedback loops for error recovery, e.g. "Check their reason... Wait for their current task to complete... Retry shutdown request". These are messaging workflows rather than destructive/batch operations, so no validation checkpoint is required to reach the top anchor.

5 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

The body is well-sectioned and one level deep, but the sole bundle file `references/messaging-patterns.md` — a whole library of ready-to-use message templates — is never mentioned or linked anywhere in the body, so its content is undiscoverable from SKILL.md. This matches the 'references present but not clearly signaled' anchor: the reference exists in the bundle but the body provides no navigation to it. It is not a 2 because the body itself is well organized with no monolithic inlining, and not a 4 because the one provided reference is completely un-signaled rather than only imperfectly placed.

3 / 5

Total

17

/

20

Passed

Description

95%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: concrete capability list, explicit 'Use this skill when' clause with five distinct trigger scenarios, and natural trigger phrasing throughout. The only weakness is that teammate discovery and troubleshooting — two full sections of the body — are not represented in the capability list.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description lists several concrete capabilities — "message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid" — matching the anchor for several specific actions with minor gaps. It is not a 5 because two substantial parts of the skill (teammate discovery and troubleshooting) are absent from the description, and not a 3 because it names far more than 1-2 actions.

4 / 5

Completeness

It explicitly answers both: the 'what' ("Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns") and the 'when' ("Use this skill when establishing communication norms..., when deciding whether to send a direct message or a broadcast, ... when debugging why teammates are not coordinating"). This structurally matches the anchor-5 good example with concrete trigger phrases; a 4 would require a weaker or less specific 'when' clause.

5 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

Natural trigger phrases like "deciding whether to send a direct message or a broadcast", "review and approve an implementer's plan before work begins", "graceful team shutdown", and "teammates are not coordinating correctly at integration points" mirror what a team-lead would actually say. Coverage across scenarios is comprehensive with synonyms (direct message/broadcast, shutdown/shut down, coordinating), so it fits the top anchor rather than the 'a few natural terms missing' anchor.

5 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

It occupies a clear niche (agent team messaging protocols) with distinct triggers — plan approval requests, shutdown orchestration, broadcast-vs-direct-message decisions — that sibling skills like team composition or parallel development would not claim. Triggers are specific enough that conflict risk is minimal, fitting the top anchor rather than the 'minor overlap risk with closely related skills' anchor.

5 / 5

Total

19

/

20

Passed

Validation

87%

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

Validation — 14 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

frontmatter_unknown_keys

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

Warning

relative_links

Relative link issues: 2 suspicious

Warning

Total

14

/

16

Passed

Repository

wshobson/agents

Path

plugins/agent-teams/skills/team-communication-protocols/SKILL.md

Reviewed

Table of Contents

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