Validate Skills

Validate Claude Code Skills

Runs claudelint validate-skills to validate Claude Code skill directories.

Usage

claudelint validate-skills $ARGUMENTS

Options

• --path - Custom path to skills directory
• --skill - Validate specific skill
• --verbose - Show detailed output
• --warnings-as-errors - Treat warnings as errors

Examples

Example 1: Skill appears in slash menu but won't execute

User says: "I see my skill /deploy-app in the menu but when I run it, Claude says it can't find it" What happens:

1. Checks directory name is deploy-app/ but SKILL.md has name: deployApp
2. Shows mismatch: directory uses kebab-case, frontmatter uses camelCase
3. Explains skill names must match directory name exactly
4. Shows fix: change frontmatter to name: deploy-app

Result: Skill executes correctly after fixing name mismatch

Example 2: Claude won't use Bash tool even though it's needed

User says: "My skill script.sh needs to run bash commands but Claude says 'Tool Bash not allowed'" What happens:

1. Checks SKILL.md frontmatter has allowed-tools: ["bash", "read"]
2. Shows tool names are case-sensitive - found lowercase "bash" instead of "Bash"
3. Lists all valid tool names with correct capitalization
4. Shows fix: allowed-tools: ["Bash", "Read"]

Result: Claude can now execute bash commands in the skill

Example 3: Skill validation blocks git commit with "dangerous command"

User says: "Pre-commit hook is failing on my cleanup skill with 'dangerous command detected: rm -rf'" What happens:

1. Scans cleanup.sh script, finds rm -rf $TEMP_DIR
2. Flags it because $TEMP_DIR could be empty or / (dangerous)
3. Suggests safer alternative: validate directory first, use explicit path
4. Shows fixed version: [[ -n "$TEMP_DIR" && "$TEMP_DIR" != "/" ]] && rm -rf "$TEMP_DIR"

Result: Skill now validates paths before deletion, commit succeeds

Command Examples

Validate all skills:

claudelint validate-skills

Validate specific skill:

claudelint validate-skills --skill my-skill

What Gets Validated

Required Fields

• name field must match directory name
• description must be present
• Name must be kebab-case (lowercase with hyphens)
• Name must not exceed 64 characters

allowed-tools Validation

• Must be an array
• Warns for unknown tools
• Accepts: Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Grep, Glob, LSP, WebFetch, WebSearch, etc.

Model Validation

• Validates model field if present
• Accepted values: sonnet, opus, haiku

File References

• Checks that referenced files in SKILL.md exist
• Validates relative paths

Directory Organization

• Warns if skill has >10 loose files (suggest subdirectories)
• Warns if directory nesting >3 levels deep

Documentation

• Warns if CHANGELOG.md is missing
• Warns if SKILL.md lacks usage examples (no code blocks)
• Warns if multi-file skill (>3 scripts) lacks README.md
• Warns if skill lacks version field

Best Practices

• Warns if shell scripts lack shebang (#!/bin/bash)
• Warns if scripts have no explanatory comments
• Detects inconsistent naming conventions

Security

• Errors for dangerous commands (rm -rf /, dd, mkfs)
• Warns for eval/exec usage
• Warns for path traversal patterns

Exit Codes

• 0 - No errors or warnings
• 1 - Warnings found
• 2 - Errors found

For troubleshooting, see [common issues](./references/common-issues.md). For customization, see [configuration](./references/configuration.md).

See Also

• [validate-all](../validate-all/SKILL.md) - Run all validators
• [optimize-cc-md](../optimize-cc-md/SKILL.md) - Optimize CLAUDE.md files

Source & license

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

• Author: pdugan20
• Source: pdugan20/claudelint
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://www.claudelint.com

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