Content
47%Scale 1-3Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This is a thorough, well-structured system design process skill with excellent workflow clarity and explicit gates, but it suffers significantly from verbosity — the same core principles (especially 'no hidden defaults') are restated in multiple forms across principles, rationalizations, gates, and red flags. The referenced bundle files (nfr-checklist.md, sizing-thresholds.md, output-format.md) are missing, which undermines both actionability and progressive disclosure. The skill would benefit greatly from aggressive trimming and ensuring referenced files exist.
Suggestions
Cut content by 40-50%: the 'no hidden defaults' principle is stated in principle 6, the rationalizations table, the gate description, and the red flags — consolidate to one authoritative statement and brief references elsewhere.
Provide the referenced bundle files (references/nfr-checklist.md, references/sizing-thresholds.md, references/output-format.md) or inline their essential content — without them, key actionable details are missing.
Add a concrete example of a Stage 1 requirements document output (even a brief one) so Claude has a tangible template, not just abstract descriptions of what it should contain.
Move the red flags table and rationalizations table into a separate reference file (e.g., references/red-flags.md) to reduce the main SKILL.md to a scannable process overview.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill is extremely verbose at ~350+ lines of dense prose. It extensively explains meta-process concepts, rationalizations, anti-patterns, and principles that Claude could infer from much shorter instructions. Tables of 'rationalizations that mean STOP' and lengthy red-flag tables repeat concepts already stated in the principles. Many paragraphs restate the same 'no hidden defaults' rule in slightly different ways. | 1 / 3 |
Actionability | The skill provides a clear multi-stage process with defined gates and outputs, and references specific tools (AskUserQuestion, planning mode, WebSearch, Context7). However, it lacks concrete executable examples — no sample requirement documents, no example gate questions, no template artifacts inline. It references external files (references/nfr-checklist.md, references/sizing-thresholds.md, references/output-format.md) that are not provided in the bundle, making key details unresolvable. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The 5-stage workflow is clearly sequenced with explicit hard gates between stages. Stage 1 has a binary gate with clear pass/fail criteria. Stage 3 has a detailed dual-track process with fallback paths. Validation checkpoints are explicit throughout (e.g., 'while ANY item is unconfirmed... the gate does NOT pass — full stop'). Feedback loops for error recovery are well-defined (iterative sync blocks, re-validation rounds, max 2-3 convergence rounds). | 3 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | The skill references three external files (references/nfr-checklist.md, references/sizing-thresholds.md, references/output-format.md) which is good progressive disclosure structure, but none of these files are provided in the bundle, making the references unverifiable. The main SKILL.md itself is monolithic — the red flags table, rationalizations table, and detailed Stage 3 branching logic could be split into reference files to reduce the main file's length. | 2 / 3 |
Total | 8 / 12 Passed |