AC freelance-developer-coach
End-to-end coach for freelance / contract / independent software developers (full-stack / backend / frontend / mobile / DevOps / data / ML / staff-eng-as-a-service) building a sustainable practice across Upwork / Toptal / Arc / Pangea / Braintrust / direct outbound / referrals. Use when a developer asks about niche selection, positioning, rate setting, finding inbound, sales / discovery calls, contracts, scope creep, retainer pricing, taxes / entity setup, productizing, hiring, transitioning to agency, or scaling income beyond billable hours. Triggers on phrases like "freelance developer rates", "Upwork freelance", "Toptal alternatives", "set up LLC for freelance", "freelance contract template", "scope creep", "retainer vs hourly", "$100/hour developer", "moonlighting taxes", "freelance health insurance", "contract-to-FTE", "becoming a contractor".
As a process C 64/100 · Has gaps — weak spots: result and completion, inputs and preconditions, running it twice
How to improve
- The SKILL.md body is over 5,000 tokens: move reference detail into references/ and load it when needed.
- 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 · 0
✓ No critical or high findings
Files scanned: 2. Evidence is masked. Grey chips explain why severity was lowered.
Against the Agent Skills spec
- warning
body-longSKILL.md body ≈ 6375 tokens (recommended < 5000); move details to references/
Process rating: all ten parameters 64/100
- 0Inputs and preconditions. Does not say what the process needs to start
- 0Progress reporting. Says nothing while it works
- 30Running it twice. 17 mutating operations with no state check
- 40Result and completion. Does not say what the result is
- 60Tools and files. Uses tools (python, node) that frontmatter does not declare
- 70Failures and branches. 4 branches
- 70Execution cost. Instruction body is 6375 tokens
- 100Steps. 211 steps
- 100When it triggers. States when to use and when not to
- 100Consistency. Name and required fields are in place
- low 13 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
- +4Description does not say when NOT to use the skill (false activations)
- +3Description length 860: 120–800 characters recommended
- +3Output format is not stated: the model decides each time
- +1No license
- +2Single-language instructions
- +5Description quotes 12 example trigger phrases
- +4Structure: 14 headings
- +3Step-by-step instructions: 211 items
- +4Has examples (1 code blocks)
Quality base 70; lint remarks subtract, signals add up to 100. Result: 76.