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BF effective-agent-skills

Author and review high-quality agent skills with triggers, progressive disclosure, and safety notes.

sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills Hermes author: sickn33 MIT 1 file body ≈ 3 824 tokens Open the sourcegithub.com↗ analyzed 2 d ago

Author and review high-quality agent skills with triggers, progressive disclosure, and safety notes.

As a process F 42/100 · Will not run — References files that are not bundled: references/foo.md, scripts/validate.py

AnalyzerSoftware developmentQuality controltype and topics are labelled automatically from the skill text
Runs in: Claude / Claude Code Hermes Agent
JSON
Technical rating
B
84/100
safety, quality, tests
Safety 60%
95
Quality 40%
67
Run on models
none yet
Process rating
F
42/100
Will not run
References files that are not bundled: references/foo.md, scripts/validate.py
Tools and files w 18
0
Inputs and preconditions w 11
0
Failures and branches w 10
0
the three weakest of ten parameters · all ten
This is a copy of a skill from another catalog; the rating counts the canonical one: effective-agent-skills (sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills)

The same skill appears in 2 more places: agentic-awesome-skills, agentic-awesome-skills

What is at stake

Medium-severity findings: the skill is probably honest, but read what alarmed the scanner.

Instruction override medium severity

Below is the worst case for this category. The finding here is medium: the guard saw a sign, not a proof.

If you install

The text contains phrases like "ignore previous instructions" or "you are now…". That is an attempt to hijack the agent: it may break your rules, the system limits or company policy.

For the author

An honest skill does not need them: state the role and the rules directly without overriding other instructions. Otherwise catalog scanners and corporate filters will block the listing.

How to improve

  1. For Hermes the description must be one sentence under 60 characters; move the conditions to a "When to Use" section.
  2. The text references files that are not there: add them or drop the references.
For the model run — optional
  • 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
  • medium Instruction override en-ignore-previous SKILL.md:291
    Instruction-override phrase ("ignore previous instructions") (detector / deny-list definition)
    - Check references for prompt injection ("ignore previous instructions...")
    detector

Files scanned: 1. Evidence is masked. Grey chips explain why severity was lowered.

Against the Agent Skills spec

  • warning description-long-hermes description is 100 chars; the Hermes authoring standard requires ≤ 60 (one sentence, ending with a period)
  • warning missing-ref reference to a missing file: references/foo.md
  • warning missing-ref reference to a missing file: scripts/validate.py
  • note frontmatter-key unknown frontmatter key "risk"
  • note frontmatter-key unknown frontmatter key "source"
  • note frontmatter-key unknown frontmatter key "source_repo"
  • note frontmatter-key unknown frontmatter key "source_type"
  • note frontmatter-key unknown frontmatter key "date_added"
  • note frontmatter-key unknown frontmatter key "tools"
  • note frontmatter-key unknown frontmatter key "license_source"

Process rating: all ten parameters 42/100

Will not run. References files that are not bundled: references/foo.md, scripts/validate.py
  • 0Tools and files. 2 referenced file(s) missing: references/foo.md, scripts/validate.py
  • 0Inputs and preconditions. Does not say what the process needs to start
  • 0Failures and branches. Linear process with no failure handling
  • 0Progress reporting. Says nothing while it works
  • 30Running it twice. 9 mutating operations with no state check
  • 50When it triggers. No condition that starts the skill
  • 60Result and completion. Output format stated, no completion criterion
  • 85Steps. 80 steps, 3 vague phrases
  • 100Consistency. Name and required fields are in place
  • 100Execution cost. Instruction body is 3824 tokens
  • medium Safety rules and hard prohibitions inside a skill: they belong in the system prompt, here they protect nothing
  • low 15 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

  • +5Description has no quoted example phrases that should trigger the skill
  • +4Description does not say when NOT to use the skill (false activations)
  • +3Description length 100: 120–800 characters recommended
  • +2Single-language instructions
  • +4Structure: 43 headings
  • +3Step-by-step instructions: 80 items
  • +3Output format is stated explicitly
  • +4Has examples (4 code blocks)
  • +1License stated

Quality base 70; lint remarks subtract, signals add up to 100. Result: 67.