Skill Reviewer

Skill Reviewer

Review and improve Claude Code skills against official best practices.

Setup (Auto-Install Dependencies)

Before using this skill, ensure skill-creator is installed for automated validation.

Auto-install sequence:

# 1. Check if skill-creator exists
SKILL_CREATOR=$(find ~/.claude/plugins/cache -name "skill-creator" -type d 2>/dev/null | head -1)

# 2. If not found, install it
if [ -z "$SKILL_CREATOR" ]; then
  claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/daymade/claude-code-skills
  claude plugin install skill-creator@daymade-skills
  SKILL_CREATOR=$(find ~/.claude/plugins/cache -name "skill-creator" -type d 2>/dev/null | head -1)
fi

echo "skill-creator location: $SKILL_CREATOR"

Three Modes

Mode 1: Self-Review

Check your own skill before publishing.

Automated validation (run after setup):

# Quick validation
python3 "$SKILL_CREATOR"/*/quick_validate.py 

# Security scan
python3 "$SKILL_CREATOR"/*/security_scan.py  --verbose

Manual evaluation: See references/evaluation_checklist.md.

Mode 2: External Review

Evaluate someone else's skill repository.

Review Workflow:
- [ ] Clone repository to /tmp/
- [ ] Read ALL documentation first
- [ ] Identify author's intent
- [ ] Run evaluation checklist
- [ ] Generate improvement report

Mode 3: Auto-PR

Fork, improve, and submit PR to external skill repository.

Auto-PR Workflow:
- [ ] Fork repository (gh repo fork)
- [ ] Create feature branch
- [ ] Apply additive improvements only
- [ ] Self-review: respect check passed?
- [ ] Create PR with detailed explanation

Evaluation Checklist (Quick)

| Category | Check | Status | |----------|-------|--------| | Frontmatter | name present? | | | | description present? | | | | description in third-person? | | | | includes trigger conditions? | | | Instructions | imperative form? | | | | under 500 lines? | | | | workflow pattern? | | | Resources | no hardcoded paths? | | | | scripts have error handling? | |

Full checklist: references/evaluation_checklist.md

Core Principle: Additive Only

When improving external skills, NEVER:

• Delete existing files
• Remove functionality
• Change primary language
• Rename components

ALWAYS:

• Add new capabilities
• Preserve original content
• Explain every change

❌ "Removed metadata.json (non-standard)"
✅ "Added marketplace.json (metadata.json preserved)"

❌ "Rewrote README in English"
✅ "Added README.en.md (Chinese preserved as default)"

Common Issues & Fixes

Issue: Description Not Third-Person

# Before
description: Browse YouTube videos and summarize them.

# After
description: Browses YouTube videos and generates summaries. Use when...

Issue: Missing Trigger Conditions

# Before
description: Processes PDF files.

# After
description: Extracts text from PDFs. Use when working with PDF files or when the user mentions PDFs, forms, or document extraction.

Issue: No Workflow Pattern

Add checklist for complex tasks:

## Workflow

Copy this checklist:

\`\`\`
Task Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: ...
- [ ] Step 2: ...
\`\`\`

Issue: Missing Marketplace Support

Adding or validating marketplace.json (plugin boundaries, source/skills layout, whether skills are independently toggleable) is the marketplace-dev skill's domain — don't author it from a template here. Ensure marketplace-dev is available (auto-install it if missing), then follow its workflow and references/cache_and_source_patterns.md.

PR Guidelines

When submitting PRs to external repos:

Tone

❌ "Your skill doesn't follow best practices"
✅ "This PR aligns with best practices for better discoverability"

❌ "Fixed the incorrect description"
✅ "Improved description with trigger conditions"

Required Sections

1. Summary - What this PR does
2. What's NOT Changed - Show respect for original
3. Rationale - Why each change helps
4. Test Plan - How to verify

Template: references/pr_template.md

Self-Review Checklist

Before submitting any PR:

Respect Check:
- [ ] No files deleted?
- [ ] No functionality removed?
- [ ] Original language preserved?
- [ ] Author's design decisions respected?
- [ ] All changes are additive?
- [ ] PR explains the "why"?

References

• references/evaluation_checklist.md - Full evaluation checklist
• references/pr_template.md - PR description template
• Best practices: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/agent-skills/best-practices

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: daymade
• Source: daymade/claude-code-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.