Audit Skills

Audit Skills

Audit personal Claude skills for consistency, best practices, and up-to-date standards.

Command routing

Check $ARGUMENTS:

• help → display help then stop
• --fix [skill-name] → auto-fix issues (see Fix mode)
• --verbose [skill-name] → show full details for every check (not just failures)
• `` → audit a single skill
• empty → audit all skills

Help

Doctor — Audit personal Claude skills for health and consistency

Usage:
  /audit-skills                      Audit all personal skills
  /audit-skills          Audit a single skill
  /audit-skills --fix                Auto-fix all skills
  /audit-skills --fix    Auto-fix a specific skill
  /audit-skills --verbose            Full detail for every check
  /audit-skills help                 This help

Checks performed:
  Manifest    Does the skill follow SKILLS_GUIDE.md conventions?
  Frontmatter Are all required/recommended fields present and correct?
  Content     Is the skill under 500 lines? Are references bundled?
  Tools       Are allowed-tools minimal? Any duplicates? Any contradictions?
  UX          Does it have help/config/reset? First-time detection? Memory?
  Docs        Is the description third-person with trigger keywords?
  Security    Does disable-model-invocation match the side-effect profile?
  Upstream    Does it follow latest official Claude skills documentation?

Output:
  [PASS] Check passed
  [WARN] Non-critical suggestion
  [FAIL] Violates manifest or best practice
  [INFO] Informational note

Example output:
  /slack-to-ticket
    [PASS] Third-person description
    [PASS] disable-model-invocation: true (has side effects)
    [WARN] SKILL.md is 120 lines — fine, but has inline examples that could be bundled
    [FAIL] Missing help subcommand
    [PASS] Preferences memory pattern present

Step 1: Load references

Local manifest

Read ~/.claude/skills/SKILLS_GUIDE.md — this is the source of truth for local conventions.

Latest upstream docs

Search the web for the latest Claude Code skills documentation:

ultrathink

Search for:

• site:code.claude.com skills — official skill format docs
• site:platform.claude.com agent-skills best-practices — authoring best practices
• claude code skills 2026 — any new features or changes

Fetch and read the top results. Extract:

• Any NEW frontmatter fields not in our manifest
• Any CHANGED best practices (naming, descriptions, tool restrictions)
• Any DEPRECATED patterns we're still using
• Any NEW features we should adopt

Compile a checklist of upstream checks in addition to the manifest checks.

If web search is unavailable, proceed with manifest-only checks and note: "Could not fetch upstream docs — manifest checks only."

Step 2: Discover skills

~/.claude/skills/*/SKILL.md

List all found skills. If a specific skill-name was given in $ARGUMENTS, filter to just that one.

Step 3: Audit each skill

For each skill, run every check below. Track results as PASS/WARN/FAIL/INFO.

Frontmatter checks

| Check | PASS | FAIL | |---|---|---| | name present | Has name | Missing | | description present | Has description | Missing | | description is third-person | Starts with verb in third person ("Creates", "Analyzes") | Imperative/second person ("Create", "Analyze") | | description has trigger keywords | Contains "Use when" or similar usage hint | No usage context | | description length | ≤1024 chars | Over 1024 | | argument-hint present | Has hint | WARN: missing (optional but recommended) | | disable-model-invocation | true if skill has side effects (check allowed-tools for Write, Edit, Bash, MCP create/update tools) | Missing when side effects present | | allowed-tools present | Listed | WARN: missing (broad permissions) |

Tool checks

| Check | PASS | FAIL | |---|---|---| | No duplicate MCP tools | Single prefix per service | Both mcp__linear-server__* and mcp__claude_ai_Linear__* | | MCP tools use canonical prefix | Uses mcp__claude_ai_Linear__* | Uses mcp__linear-server__* | | No contradictory tools | Read-only skills don't have Write/Edit | Read-only principle violated | | Minimal tools | Only tools actually referenced in body | Tools listed but never used |

Content checks

| Check | PASS | FAIL | |---|---|---| | Under 500 lines | ≤500 | WARN: over 500 | | No redundant instructions | Doesn't tell Claude how to use JSON, git basics, etc. | WARN: generic instructions | | Uses numbered checklists for workflows | Steps are numbered | WARN: prose-only workflow | | References bundled files if >100 lines of examples | Examples in separate files | WARN: large inline examples |

UX checks (from manifest conventions)

| Check | PASS | FAIL | |---|---|---| | help subcommand | Body handles $ARGUMENTS = "help" | Missing | | config subcommand | Body handles $ARGUMENTS = "config" | Missing | | reset subcommand | Body handles $ARGUMENTS = "reset" | Missing | | First-time detection | Checks for preferences file existence | Missing | | Preferences memory | References preferences.md file | Missing | | Dynamic context injection | Uses !backtick`` preprocessing | WARN: missing where applicable |

Upstream checks (from fetched docs)

Apply any new checks discovered in Step 1. Common ones:

| Check | PASS | FAIL | |---|---|---| | context: fork for self-contained skills | Set when skill doesn't need conversation history | WARN: could benefit from fork | | model field for reasoning-heavy skills | Set for complex analysis skills | INFO: could benefit from model override | | Positional args $0, $1 | Used for structured inputs | INFO: could use positional args | | Skill directory structure | Has SKILL.md + optional reference/examples | Non-standard structure |

Inventory check (only on full audit)

• Compare discovered skills against SKILLS_GUIDE.md inventory table
• Report any skills not in the inventory (WARN)
• Report any inventory entries with no matching skill (WARN)

Step 4: Present results

Per-skill report

/skill-name
  [PASS] 8 checks passed
  [WARN] 2 warnings
  [FAIL] 1 failure

  Failures:
    - disable-model-invocation missing (skill creates Linear issues)

  Warnings:
    - No dynamic context injection (could pre-fetch git branch)
    - SKILL.md is 180 lines with inline examples (consider bundling)

Summary (full audit only)

Doctor Summary — {date}

Skills audited: {N}
  [PASS] {N} fully healthy
  [WARN] {N} with warnings
  [FAIL] {N} with failures

Top issues:
  1. {most common failure across skills}
  2. {second most common}

Upstream updates:
  {Any new features/changes from official docs worth adopting}
  (or "All skills are up-to-date with latest docs")

Inventory:
  {N} skills in SKILLS_GUIDE.md
  {N} skill directories found
  {discrepancies if any}

Step 5: Offer fixes (if --fix flag)

If --fix was passed:

1. For each FAIL, propose a specific edit
2. For each WARN, propose a fix (optional)
3. Use AskUserQuestion (multiSelect: true):

• One option per proposed fix
• "Apply all fixes"
• "Skip all"

1. Apply approved fixes using Edit tool
2. Update SKILLS_GUIDE.md inventory if new skills were found
3. Report what was changed

Without --fix: just report findings.

Step 6: Save audit results

Write a timestamped audit log to:

~/.claude/skills/audit-skills/last-audit.md

Format:

# Skill Audit — {date}

## Summary
- Skills: {N}
- Pass: {N}, Warn: {N}, Fail: {N}

## Per-skill results
{compact results}

## Upstream notes
{anything new from docs}

This allows comparing across audits to track improvement.

Principles

• Non-destructive by default: Only report, never modify without --fix and user confirmation.
• Manifest is local truth: SKILLS_GUIDE.md defines what "good" means for this user.
• Upstream is advisory: New features from official docs are INFO/WARN, not FAIL (unless the user's manifest adopts them).
• Be specific: Every FAIL/WARN includes exactly what's wrong and how to fix it.
• Fast: Don't re-read files unnecessarily. Parse frontmatter first, skip deep content checks if frontmatter fails.

Source & license

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

• Author: mostafa-drz
• Source: mostafa-drz/claude-skills
• License: MIT

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