skill-creator-review

name	skill-creator-review
description	Reviews and validates existing Claude Code skills for correctness, quality, and best practices. Use when reviewing a skill, auditing SKILL.md files, checking skill quality, or when the user says "review this skill", "validate my skill", "check my SKILL.md", or "is this skill correct".

Skill Review and Validation

Review the given skill by checking each category below. Report findings as PASS, WARN, or FAIL with specific fixes.

1. Structure Validation

Check these hard requirements. Any failure here means the skill will not work:

Check	Requirement
File name	Exactly SKILL.md (case-sensitive)
Folder name	kebab-case only (no spaces, underscores, capitals)
Frontmatter	Starts and ends with --- on separate lines
Name field	kebab-case, matches folder name, max 64 chars
Reserved names	Does NOT start with "claude" or "anthropic"
No XML	No angle brackets (< >) in frontmatter values
No README.md	Skill folder does not contain a README.md

2. Description Quality

The description is the most critical field — it determines when Claude loads the skill.

FAIL conditions:

• Missing description entirely
• Over 1024 characters
• Contains XML angle brackets

WARN conditions:

• Too vague (e.g., "Helps with projects")
• Missing trigger phrases (no "Use when..." clause)
• Missing capability list
• Too technical without user-facing language

PASS criteria:

• States WHAT the skill does
• States WHEN to use it (with specific trigger phrases)
• Lists KEY CAPABILITIES
• Under 1024 characters
• Includes words users would actually say

Evaluate against this formula:

[What it does] + [When to use it] + [Key capabilities]

3. Instruction Quality

Review the SKILL.md body for:

Specificity — Instructions must be actionable, not vague.

• FAIL: "Validate the data before proceeding"
• PASS: "Run python scripts/validate.py --input {file} to check data format"

Structure — Should use clear headers and ordered steps.

• WARN if no numbered steps for sequential workflows
• WARN if walls of text without headers or bullet points

Examples — Should include at least one concrete example.

• WARN if no examples section
• FAIL if task skill has no usage example

Error handling — Should address common failure modes.

• WARN if no troubleshooting section
• FAIL for MCP-dependent skills with no error handling

Progressive disclosure — SKILL.md should stay focused.

• WARN if over 500 lines without supporting files
• WARN if large reference tables inline instead of in references/

4. Invocation Configuration

Check that frontmatter fields match the skill's intended use:

Skill Type	Expected Configuration
Side-effect task (deploy, send, delete)	disable-model-invocation: true
Background knowledge	user-invocable: false
Read-only exploration	allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob
Isolated heavy task	context: fork with agent specified
Accepts arguments	$ARGUMENTS used in body, argument-hint set

WARN if a skill with destructive actions (deploy, delete, send) does not have disable-model-invocation: true.

5. Triggering Risk Assessment

Evaluate the description for triggering risks:

Under-triggering risk (skill won't activate when it should):

• Description is too specific or technical
• Missing common phrasings users would say
• No mention of relevant file types

Over-triggering risk (skill activates when it shouldn't):

• Description is too broad (e.g., "helps with code")
• Overlaps with other common skills
• No scope boundaries

Suggest negative triggers if over-triggering is likely:

description: >-
  Advanced data analysis for CSV files. Use for statistical modeling,
  regression, clustering. Do NOT use for simple data viewing or chart creation.

6. Supporting Files

If supporting files exist, check:

• Each file is referenced from SKILL.md
• File names are descriptive
• No orphan files that SKILL.md never mentions
• Scripts use ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR} for portable paths

Output Format

Present the review as:

## Skill Review: [skill-name]

### Structure: [PASS/WARN/FAIL]
[Details]

### Description: [PASS/WARN/FAIL]
[Details + suggested improvement if not PASS]

### Instructions: [PASS/WARN/FAIL]
[Details]

### Invocation: [PASS/WARN/FAIL]
[Details]

### Triggering: [PASS/WARN/FAIL]
[Under/over-triggering assessment]

### Supporting Files: [PASS/WARN/FAIL/N/A]
[Details]

### Overall: [PASS/WARN/FAIL]
[Summary + top 3 action items if any]