AF skill-progressive-disclosure-design
Decide how to split skill content between SKILL.md and reference files for context efficiency and reliable triggering. Use this whenever creating a new Claude skill, refactoring an existing one, or when a SKILL.md is growing past 300-400 lines. Also trigger when the user mentions "progressive disclosure", "reference files", "splitting skills", "skill bundling", "context window for skills", "SKILL.md too long", "what goes in references/", "skill structure", or expresses any uncertainty about where to put content within a skill. Use this even if the user phrases the question as a triggering problem ("how do I make my skill trigger better"), because that question is often confused with the splitting question and needs to be disentangled first.
As a process F 54/100 · Will not run — References files that are not bundled: references/*, scripts/*, references/<variant>.md
How to improve
- The text references files that are not there: add them or drop the references.
- 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
missing-refreference to a missing file: references/* - warning
missing-refreference to a missing file: scripts/* - warning
missing-refreference to a missing file: references/<variant>.md - warning
missing-refreference to a missing file: references/edge-cases.md - warning
missing-refreference to a missing file: references/*.md
Process rating: all ten parameters 54/100
- 0Tools and files. 5 referenced file(s) missing: references/*, scripts/*, references/<variant>.md
- 0Inputs and preconditions. Does not say what the process needs to start
- 0Progress reporting. Says nothing while it works
- 30Running it twice. 9 mutating operations with no state check
- 60Result and completion. Output format stated, no completion criterion
- 70When it triggers. States when to use, but not when not to
- 70Failures and branches. 11 branches
- 100Steps. 132 steps
- 100Consistency. Name and required fields are in place
- 100Execution cost. Instruction body is 3991 tokens
- medium Safety rules and hard prohibitions inside a skill: they belong in the system prompt, here they protect nothing
- low No test case covers injection arriving through data
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)
- +2Single-language instructions
- +5Description quotes 9 example trigger phrases
- +3Description length 750: enough signal without eating the budget
- +4Structure: 24 headings
- +3Step-by-step instructions: 132 items
- +3Output format is stated explicitly
- +4Has examples (1 code blocks)
- +1License stated
Quality base 70; lint remarks subtract, signals add up to 100. Result: 81.