Conciseness

Dense and procedural with almost no explanation of concepts Claude already knows, but the stage-before-balance ordering is stated three times (workflow step 2's "Do this before any balance or flow claim", the Rules bullet, and Quality Gates) and a few rhetorical asides ("a board that can't build lies about everything else") could be trimmed. Not 5 because of this repetition; well above 3 since every step still carries actionable specifics.

Actionability

Concrete guidance throughout — named evidence sources ("artifacts present, decision-log entries, shipped output, tracker/git history, dates"), named fields to write (`stage`/`stage_entered`, `orientation`), and a three-branch classification rule. Not 5 because step 1 says "Regenerate the board (script)" without naming the script or its command, leaving the entry-point action under-specified.

Workflow Clarity

Clear six-step sequence with enforced ordering ("Fix contract violations first", "Do this before any balance or flow claim"), an explicit exit checklist (Quality Gates: "zero contract violations at exit", "Every Tier-1 card has a current, cited orientation value"), and error handling (unreachable evidence gets "unverified", corrections logged in Evidence logs, board regenerated before and after). Not 4 because validation checkpoints are explicit, not merely implied.

Progressive Disclosure

Well-sectioned body with clearly signaled one-level-deep references (derisking rubric, council template) and the core rubric usefully inlined in step 4 with a pointer to the full reference. Not 5 because the skill ships no bundle files of its own and the template path is given inconsistently ("`templates/review.md`" in Modes vs "`skills/portfolio-pdlc/templates/review.md`" in References), a minor navigation gap.

Specificity

Lists multiple concrete actions — "Verifies stages against evidence", "classifies every card on the input→impact ladder", "reads flow and risk balance", "outputs a review brief with ranked candidate moves" — covering the skill's capabilities comprehensively with no vague padding.

Completeness

Explicitly answers both: what ("verifies stages… classifies every card… reads flow and risk balance… outputs a review brief with ranked candidate moves") and when ("Use when asking 'where is everything really, and is it outcome-oriented or activity-oriented?' — full portfolio reads, review/investment-council prep, stale-status sweeps, or restoring board integrity after contract violations") with concrete trigger phrases.

Trigger Term Quality

Good natural-language triggers ("full portfolio reads", "review/investment-council prep", "stale-status sweeps", the quoted "where is everything really" question), but a few natural variations users might say (e.g., "portfolio audit", "board review", "status check") are missing. Not 5 because synonym coverage is not comprehensive; not 3 because the terms present are the phrases a practitioner would actually use.

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Occupies a clear niche ("The sensing pass of the portfolio-pdlc operating system") with distinct triggers, and explicitly delimits its relationship to the composed skills ("Composes the sniff-test and sniff-test-portfolio skills"), minimizing wrong-skill triggering.