Evals Clarify

evals-clarify

What this skill does

Conducts axial coding following EDD Principles III & IX to cluster related failure patterns, refine evaluation criteria, generate adversarial examples, and accept validated drafts into the published goldset.

Output:

1. Clustered Criteria - Related patterns grouped into coherent evaluation themes
2. Adversarial Examples - Generated attack scenarios and edge cases for robustness
3. Published Goldset - Accepted criteria in evals/{system}/goldset.md with full documentation
4. Holdout Dataset - Reserved test set (20%) for unbiased evaluation validation
5. JSON Configuration - Auto-generated goldset.json for system consumption
6. Auto-handoff to /evals-implement for grader generation

Key EDD Principles Applied:

• Principle III: Error Analysis & Pattern Discovery - Axial coding → theoretical relationships
• Principle IX: Test Data as Code - Adversarial generation, holdout splits, version control
• Principle II: Binary Pass/Fail - Maintain strict binary evaluation throughout
• Principle I: Spec-Driven Contracts - Criteria validate spec compliance

When to use

• After /evals-specify: Refine and accept draft criteria into goldset
• Dataset maintenance: Balance pass/fail examples or add adversarial cases
• Adding holdout split: Isolate validation data from training data

When NOT to use

• No draft criteria exist: Run /evals-specify to discover patterns first
• Grader generation: Use /evals-implement to convert accepted goldset into code

Process

User Input

$ARGUMENTS

• --accept IDS — Accept specific draft IDs (e.g., "EVAL-001,EVAL-003")
• --merge IDS — Merge related criteria (e.g., "EVAL-001+EVAL-002")
• --split ID — Split complex criterion into multiple focused criteria
• --holdout-ratio RATIO — Holdout percentage (default: 0.2, range: 0.1-0.3)

Execution Steps

Phase 1: Axial Coding & Clustering

• Group related draft patterns into coherent themes.
• Resolve any overlaps or duplicate criteria.

Phase 2: Refinement & Adversarial Generation

• Generate 3-5 adversarial (attack) examples per criterion to test robustness.
• Balance pass/fail examples (~50/50 ratio).

Phase 3: Holdout Isolation

• Isolate exactly 20% of examples as a reserved holdout set (saved to .adlc/memory/evals/holdout.json).
• Ensure holdout set is never used in implementation or training.

Phase 4: Publish Goldset

• Copy accepted drafts to .adlc/memory/evals/ and update status to accepted.
• Compile published goldset to evals/{system}/goldset.md (human-readable) and evals/{system}/goldset.json (machine-readable).

Phase 5: Auto-Handoff

Trigger /evals-implement to generate code.

Verification

• Accepted drafts stored in .adlc/memory/evals/EVAL-*.md
• evals/{system}/goldset.md and goldset.json exist
• Holdout set .adlc/memory/evals/holdout.json isolated and populated
• All criteria are strictly binary (no confidence scores or Likert scales)
• Handover summary lists accepted criteria and adversarial counts

Source & license

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

• Author: tikalk
• Source: tikalk/adlc-team-skills
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://github.com/tikalk/agentic-sdlc-12-factors

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