| name | skill-tester |
| description | Validates all interactive skills in this repo against the Agent Skills spec, project conventions, and structural requirements. Runs quick_validate.py, checks line limits, verifies cross-references, and tests hook scripts. Use when skills have been added or modified and you want to verify everything passes before committing or submitting. |
Skill Tester
Validates all interactive (non-CI) skills in this repo. Runs the Anthropic skill-creator's quick_validate.py plus project-specific checks.
When to Use
- After adding or modifying a skill
- Before committing changes
- Before submitting the plugin for Anthropic review
- As part of the outer loop when eval-creator needs to verify skill quality
Checks
1. Anthropic Spec Validation
Run quick_validate.py on every skill in skills/ (excluding -ci variants):
for d in skills/*/; do
skill=$(basename "$d")
[[ "$skill" == *-ci ]] && continue
python3 .claude/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py "$d"
done
Pass criteria: Exit code 0 for every skill. Frontmatter has only allowed keys (name, description, license, allowed-tools, metadata, compatibility). Name is kebab-case, max 64 chars. Description max 1024 chars, no angle brackets.
2. Project Convention Checks
For each skill directory:
| Check | Rule | Severity |
|---|
| Name matches folder | Frontmatter name == directory name | Error |
| Line limit | SKILL.md at or under 600 lines | Error |
| No README.md | Skill folders must not contain README.md | Error |
| Scripts executable | All .sh files in scripts/ must have execute permission | Error |
| References exist | Files referenced in SKILL.md body actually exist in references/ (agent-performed — not covered by run-tests.sh) | Warning |
| Description non-empty | Description field is present and non-empty | Error |
3. Cross-Reference Validation (agent-performed — not covered by run-tests.sh)
Verify that all skills listed in these files actually exist as directories:
CLAUDE.md — Skill References section
AGENTS.md — Skill References section
.github/copilot-instructions.md — Skill References section
README.md — Skills table
Also verify reverse: every skill directory is listed in all four files.
4. Hook Script Testing
For each skill with a scripts/ directory:
bash -n scripts/*.sh
head -1 scripts/*.sh | grep -qE "^#!(/bin/bash|/usr/bin/env bash)"
test -x scripts/*.sh
5. Plugin Skill Validation (agent-performed — not covered by run-tests.sh)
For skills that exist in both skills/ and plugin/skills/:
| Check | Rule |
|---|
| Plugin frontmatter keys | Only Claude Code-specific keys (hooks, user-invocable, argument-hint) added beyond spec |
| Content alignment | Body content matches or plugin has extracted references |
| Beta markers consistent | If skills/ copy has [Beta], plugin copy should too |
Output Format
## Skill Test Results
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Skills tested:** N
**Passed:** N
**Warnings:** N
**Failed:** N
### Failures
- [skill-name]: [check]: [error message]
### Warnings
- [skill-name]: [check]: [warning message]
### All Passed
- [list of clean skills]
Running
Invoke manually:
/skill-tester
Or run the script directly:
bash skills/skill-tester/scripts/run-tests.sh
Coverage note: run-tests.sh automates Checks 1, 2, and 4 (minus the references-exist check). Checks 3 and 5 and the references-exist check are performed by the agent when /skill-tester is invoked — a green script run alone does not mean they passed.
What This Skill Does NOT Do
- Does not test CI skills (use
skill-tester-ci for those)
- Does not modify skills — reports findings only
- Does not run behavioral evals (trigger testing) — use skill-creator's
run_eval.py for that
- Does not replace the eval-creator regression framework — this tests skill structure, not promoted rules