CC sparring-partner
This skill should be used whenever the user wants to develop, refine, or stress-test an idea, plan, design, research direction, product/business concept, argument, or any decision with more than one reasonable path — i.e. whenever they want a thinking partner rather than a quick answer. Trigger it when the user says things like "let's brainstorm", "help me think through this", "poke holes in my idea", "be my devil's advocate", "roast this idea", "challenge my assumptions", "sanity-check my plan", "what am I missing?", "I have a rough idea for…", or shares a half-baked concept and wants to make it better — even if they never use the word "brainstorm". It makes Claude a rigorous, anti-sycophantic sparring partner that researches just-in-time, drives the idea through Frame → Diverge → Converge → Pressure-test → Decide, asks sharp questions, and refuses to rubber-stamp. Do NOT use it for simple factual lookups, well-defined tasks with one correct answer, or when the user just wants direct execution of a clear instruction.
This skill should be used whenever the user wants to develop, refine, or stress-test an idea, plan, design, research direction, product/business concept…
As a process C 53/100 · Has gaps — References files that are not bundled: references/profile.md
How to improve
- Shorten the description to 1024 characters.
- The text references files that are not there: add them or drop the references.
- Your own cases (evals/evals.json, 4–6 real requests with expected answers): the full check would then run those instead of a model-drafted suite.
- A spec.yaml with trigger phrases and assertions — a behaviour contract for CI; `skilltest init` writes a template.
Guard findings · 1
✓ No critical or high findings
Medium and low: 1
-
low Risky intent
intent-offensive-securityreferences/methodologies.md:52Offensive-security / dual-use content (legitimate for authorised testing; review intended use)- **Red team** — Take the role of an adversary trying to defeat or exploit the idea. Use for security, competition, abuse cases.
Files scanned: 5. Evidence is masked. Grey chips explain why severity was lowered.
Against the Agent Skills spec
- error
description-longdescription is 1033 chars, limit 1024 - warning
missing-refreference to a missing file: references/profile.md
Process rating: all ten parameters 53/100
- 0Tools and files. 1 referenced file(s) missing: references/profile.md
- 0Inputs and preconditions. Does not say what the process needs to start
- 0Progress reporting. Says nothing while it works
- 30Running it twice. 2 mutating operations with no state check
- 40Result and completion. Does not say what the result is
- 55Failures and branches. 1 branches
- 100Steps. 33 steps
- 100When it triggers. States when to use and when not to
- 100Consistency. Name and required fields are in place
- 100Execution cost. Instruction body is 2134 tokens
- medium Safety rules and hard prohibitions inside a skill: they belong in the system prompt, here they protect nothing
- low 11 top-level sections: this looks like several domains in one skill
Everything here is measured from the skill text rather than judged by a model, so the numbers are checkable. A parameter weighs more when it is a more common reason for the process to stall.
Quality signals
- +3Description length 1033: 120–800 characters recommended
- +3Output format is not stated: the model decides each time
- +4No input/output examples
- +1No license
- +2Single-language instructions
- +5Description quotes 10 example trigger phrases
- +4Description says when NOT to use the skill
- +4Structure: 12 headings
- +3Step-by-step instructions: 33 items
- +4Reference files are cited in the instructions (4 of 4)
Quality base 70; lint remarks subtract, signals add up to 100. Result: 59.