Name: testland/outbox-pattern-test-author
Rating: 72 (1 reviews)
Author: testland

testland/outbox-pattern-test-author

Authors tests for the transactional outbox pattern: atomic DB-write-plus-event-insert in one transaction, relay/poller publishing with at-least-once delivery and consumer deduplication, insertion-order preservation, idempotent consumers, and relay failure/retry. Use when adding outbox infrastructure, changing the relay or poller, or auditing whether dual-write atomicity and at-least-once delivery guarantees hold under failure.

Quality

90%

Does it follow best practices?

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Securityby

Passed

No findings from the security scan

Quality

Content

88%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.

The body is highly actionable and well-sequenced, with executable tests and explicit validation for each of the five outbox dimensions. Conciseness and progressive disclosure are slightly below the top anchor due to repeated framing text and the absence of a local bundle to absorb detail.

Suggestions

Trim the repeated 'Per microservices.io/...' preamble that recurs across steps; cite once and let the References section carry provenance.

Factor the duplicated outbox INSERT SQL into a shared helper or a short reference snippet to reduce token cost across steps.

Consider moving the Anti-patterns and Limitations tables into a references/ file so the SKILL.md body stays a lean overview with clearly signaled one-level-deep links.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	Mostly lean with executable tests per dimension and minimal boilerplate, though the recurring 'Per microservices.io/...' framing and repeated outbox-insert SQL blocks add some tokens a competent reader could infer.	4 / 5
Actionability	Each step provides complete, copy-paste-ready pytest code with concrete assertions covering happy and failure paths, plus specific guidance like 'compare the outbox row's id column ... not content hashing'.	5 / 5
Workflow Clarity	A clear five-step sequence maps one-to-one to the dimension table, each step pairs with executable tests and explicit failure-path validation, and the Anti-patterns/Limitations sections provide feedback and boundary guidance.	5 / 5
Progressive Disclosure	Well-organized with clear section headers and a References block pointing to two external URLs and two sibling skills, but there are no bundle files (references/, scripts/, assets/ absent) and several referenced paths (e.g. event-sourcing-tests references/convergence-windows.md) are external rather than local, leaving minor organization gaps.	4 / 5
	Total	18 / 20 Passed

Description

91%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.

The description is specific, complete, and distinctive, with a clear what/when structure and concrete trigger guidance. Trigger term coverage is strong but could add a few more colloquial synonyms to reach the top anchor.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Names five concrete test dimensions ('atomic DB-write-plus-event-insert', 'relay/poller publishing with at-least-once delivery', 'consumer deduplication', 'insertion-order preservation', 'idempotent consumers', 'relay failure/retry'), giving comprehensive coverage of specific actions.	5 / 5
Completeness	Explicitly answers both what ('Authors tests for the transactional outbox pattern: ...') and when ('Use when adding outbox infrastructure, changing the relay or poller, or auditing ...') with concrete trigger phrases.	5 / 5
Trigger Term Quality	Includes natural trigger phrases like 'adding outbox infrastructure', 'changing the relay or poller', and 'auditing whether dual-write atomicity...holds', but lacks common shorthand synonyms a user might say (e.g. just 'outbox tests', 'polling publisher').	4 / 5
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The niche (transactional outbox test authoring across five named dimensions) is highly specific and clearly distinguishable from sibling skills like saga-transaction-tests and event-sourcing-tests, minimizing conflict risk.	5 / 5
	Total	19 / 20 Passed

Validation

87%

Warnings & errors only

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

Criteria	Description	Result
metadata_version	'metadata.version' is missing	Warning
referenced_paths_exist	Referenced path issues: 1 missing	Warning

	Total	14 / 16 Passed

Reviewed

19 days ago

Table of Contents

Discovery Implementation Validation