jeremylongshore Prompt Improver
This skill automatically analyzes and improves plugin prompts, SKILL.md files, command definitions, and agent instructions.
Overview
The prompt-improver skill evaluates plugin content across five dimensions — clarity, safety, effectiveness, completeness, and conciseness — then provides scored assessments and concrete rewrites.
When to Use This Skill
This skill activates when you need to:
- Review and improve a SKILL.md file's instructions
- Enhance command or agent markdown definitions
- Audit prompt quality across a plugin
- Optimize instructions for better Claude performance
- Ensure prompts follow marketplace best practices
Instructions
- Identify the target — Locate the SKILL.md, command, or agent file to analyze
- Read the content — Use Read tool to get the full file contents
- Score each dimension on a 1-5 scale:
- Clarity (1-5): Are instructions unambiguous?
- Safety (1-5): Does it avoid encouraging dangerous operations?
- Effectiveness (1-5): Will it reliably produce intended results?
- Completeness (1-5): Are edge cases addressed?
- Conciseness (1-5): Is it free of unnecessary verbosity?
- Identify improvements — List specific weaknesses with line references
- Generate rewrites — Provide improved versions preserving original intent
- Apply changes — If requested, use Edit tool to apply improvements
Output Format
## Prompt Analysis: [filename]
### Scores
| Dimension | Score | Notes |
|-----------|-------|-------|
| Clarity | X/5 | ... |
| Safety | X/5 | ... |
| Effectiveness | X/5 | ... |
| Completeness | X/5 | ... |
| Conciseness | X/5 | ... |
**Overall: X/25**
### Improvements
1. [Specific improvement with before/after]
### Suggested Rewrite
[Full improved prompt text]
Best Practices
- Preserve the original author's intent and style
- Prioritize safety improvements over stylistic ones
- Keep suggestions actionable and specific
- Reference marketplace conventions from CLAUDE.md
- Validate frontmatter fields match the 2026 spec
Examples
Example 1: Improving a vague skill description
Before:
description: Does stuff with code
After:
description: |
Analyze source code for common anti-patterns and suggest refactoring improvements. Use when the user asks to "review code quality", "find code smells", or "refactor this file".
Example 2: Adding missing safety guidance
Before:
Delete all temporary files from the project.
After:
Identify temporary files (*.tmp, *.bak, *.swp) in the project. List them for user confirmation before deletion. Never delete files outside the project root.
Prerequisites
- A plugin directory containing at least one SKILL.md, command, or agent markdown file
- Read access to the target plugin's
.claude-plugin/plugin.jsonfor context - Familiarity with the 2026 SKILL.md frontmatter spec
Output
The skill produces a structured analysis report containing:
- Score card: 5 dimensions rated 1-5 with notes and an overall score out of 25
- Improvement list: Specific weaknesses with file paths and line references
- Suggested rewrite: Full improved prompt text preserving original intent
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| No SKILL.md found | Target path has no skill files | Verify the plugin path and check for skills/*/SKILL.md |
| Invalid frontmatter | YAML parsing failure in target file | Report the specific YAML error and suggest corrections |
| Empty skill body | File has frontmatter but no instructions | Flag as critical and generate a starter template |
Resources
- Claude Code plugins documentation — official plugin and SKILL.md spec
- Prompt engineering guide — Anthropic best practices for prompt design
- Marketplace conventions: see the repository CLAUDE.md for field requirements and structure
Source: jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills → skills/.curated/prompt-improver/SKILL.md
Also appears in: jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills/plugins/security/severity1-marketplace/skills/prompt-improver/SKILL.md