Solo Skill Audit

/skill-audit

Audit a skill against the quality checklist based on Anthropic's internal best practices for Claude Code skills. Reads the skill's SKILL.md, references/, scripts/, and evaluates across 12 dimensions.

Source: https://x.com/trq212/status/2033949937936085378

Checklist Reference

• Scoring rubric, 12 dimensions: references/checklist.md
• The levers the scores measure — invocation, information hierarchy, leading words, failure modes: references/writing-skills.md
• Term definitions used in findings: references/skills-glossary.md

Steps

1. Locate skill from $ARGUMENTS:

   • If name: search skills/{name}/SKILL.md in current project, then ~/.claude/plugins/**/skills/{name}/SKILL.md
   • If path: read directly
   • If empty: list available skills via Glob **/skills/*/SKILL.md, ask via AskUserQuestion

2. Read skill contents (parallel):

   • SKILL.md — main skill file
   • references/* — all reference files (if dir exists)
   • scripts/* — all scripts (if dir exists)
   • assets/* — all assets (if dir exists)
   • Count total lines of SKILL.md

3. Read checklist from references/checklist.md

4. Evaluate each dimension — for every checklist item, assess based on what you read:

   For each of the 12 dimensions:

   • State what you found (evidence)
   • Score 0, 1, or 2 (use rubric from checklist)
   • If score < 2: give one specific fix

5. Determine category — classify skill into one of 9 types from checklist. Flag if it straddles multiple.

6. Failure-mode pass — read references/writing-skills.md, then check the skill for each named failure mode. Quote the offending line for every hit; a hit with no quote is a guess:

   • No-op — a line the model already obeys by default. Test each sentence in isolation: does it change behaviour versus the default?
   • Duplication — one meaning stated in more than one place.
   • Sediment — stale lines describing behaviour, paths, or tools that no longer exist.
   • Sprawl — long even after no-ops and duplication are removed; cure is disclosure into references/, not deletion.
   • Negation — steering by prohibition where a positive target would work. Don't use X names X; use Y doesn't.
   • Premature completion — a step whose completion criterion can't distinguish done from not-done.
   • Weak leading word — a description or body leaning on generic words instead of a compact pretrained concept the user actually types.

7. Output scorecard:

   ## Skill Audit: {skill-name}
   
   **Score:** {N}/24 (Grade: {A/B/C/D/F})
   **Category:** {type}
   **SKILL.md:** {N} lines | **References:** {N} files | **Scripts:** {N} files
   
   | # | Dimension | Score | Notes |
   |---|-----------|-------|-------|
   | 1 | Category Fit | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 2 | Description Quality | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 3 | Progressive Disclosure | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 4 | Gotchas | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 5 | Don't State Obvious | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 6 | Flexibility | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 7 | Setup & Config | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 8 | Memory & State | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 9 | Scripts & Code | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 10 | Allowed Tools | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 11 | Argument Handling | {0-2} | {one line} |
   | 12 | Output & Artifacts | {0-2} | {one line} |
   
   ### Failure Modes
   {mode} — "{quoted line}" → {fix}
   (or "none found")
   
   ### Top 3 Fixes (highest impact)
   1. {fix}
   2. {fix}
   3. {fix}
   

8. Batch mode — if $ARGUMENTS is "all" or "*":

   • Find all skills via Glob
   • Run audit on each
   • Output summary table sorted by score (worst first)
   • Identify common weaknesses across the set

Gotchas

1. N/A dimensions still score 2 — if a skill genuinely doesn't need config/state/scripts, don't penalize it. Score N/A as 2. Only score 0-1 when the skill SHOULD have it but doesn't.
2. Gotchas ≠ Common Issues — "Common Issues" is troubleshooting (reactive). Gotchas are preventive — things Claude would get WRONG by default. A skill with only "Common Issues" scores 1, not 2.
3. Line count is a smell, not a rule — 500-line SKILL.md with no references is suspicious. But 400 lines of dense, non-obvious content is fine. Check if content COULD be extracted, not just if it's long.
4. Description under 300 chars — long descriptions dilute the trigger signal. Claude scans ALL skill descriptions at session start. Shorter = sharper matching.

Common Issues

Can't find skill

Cause: Skill not in expected path or using different directory structure. Fix: Use full path to SKILL.md as argument. Or run with "all" to discover available skills.

Score seems unfair

Cause: Some dimensions don't apply to the skill type. Fix: N/A dimensions score 2. Re-read the rubric — it accounts for genuinely stateless or config-free skills.