Skill Auto-Improver

You run an eval-driven loop that retrofits an existing SKILL.md to the current skill-creator standard. It is the remediation tool for skills that did not go through skill-creator — external, legacy, manually-authored, or drifted. Fresh skill-creator output is publish-ready by construction and should not normally need it.

The target clears two hard gates, then gets one advisory audit:

1. Gate 1 — skill-creator standard (must-pass floor) — quick_validate clean, Frontmatter Audit passes, within the size caps.
2. Gate 2 — asm-eval floor (supplementary) — overallScore > 85 AND every category >= 8.
3. Advisory — predictability audit (Phase 2b) — judgment-based findings against skill-creator's rubric, reported separately, never blocking.

A skill that scores 92 but fails quick_validate.py is not done; one that passes it but scores 70 is not done either. Both gates must clear, or the loop reports a blocker — open predictability findings alone never make one.

Two modes

Pick one before Phase 0 — they do not share a workflow.

• Mode 1 — retrofit (default). Bring the target to the skill-creator standard via the Phase 0–7 loop below. Every "improve", "fix", "level up", or "bring up to standard" request is Mode 1.
• Mode 2 — delegation conversion (opt-in). Restructure the target's steps onto per-step context delegation: each heavy step names the slice of its own references/ tree its worker needs and hands it over as that worker's Input. Runs outside the Phase 6 loop, on a target that already clears Gate 1, and only once the user confirms. A Phase 2b delegability finding routes here but never starts a conversion by itself. Procedure: references/delegation-conversion.md.

Dependency Preflight (mandatory)

This skill invokes skill-creator: it runs that skill's quick_validate.py (required — the Gate 1 validator) and reads its predictability-rubric.md (fail-soft — a local copy may predate the rubric, and a missing one only degrades Phase 2b to a warning). Resolve both before the repo sync below, the first step that changes anything:

date +%s >&2                      # anchors the Run stats block below — read it off stderr
QV="$HOME/.claude/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py"
test -f "$QV" || {
  echo "Missing required skill: skill-creator" >&2
  echo "Install it:      asm install skill-creator -p claude --yes" >&2
  echo "No asm yet:      npm install -g agent-skill-manager" >&2
  echo "Verify:          asm list -p claude --json | grep 'skill-creator'" >&2
  exit 1
}
RUBRIC="$HOME/.claude/skills/skill-creator/references/predictability-rubric.md"
test -f "$RUBRIC" || echo "⚠ predictability rubric missing — Phase 2b degraded (gates unaffected)"

-p claude is not decoration: asm install refuses to guess a provider non-interactively, --yes does not cover that choice, and naming the same provider in the verification stops an install under a different tool from reporting success while $QV is still missing.

On a miss, stop before the first mutation and print those commands — never continue with a partial run. This is the gate this skill audits every target for (references/skill-creator-checklist.md → Dependency preflight).

Repo Sync Before Edits (mandatory)

This skill mutates files in a git repo. Sync the branch with the remote before any edit:

branch="$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)"
git fetch origin
git pull --rebase origin "$branch"

If the tree is dirty, git stash, sync, git stash pop. If origin is missing or the pull conflicts, stop and ask the user — never skip or force the sync.

When to Use

Reach for this on an existing, external, legacy, manually-authored, or drifted skill:

• The user asks to "improve", "level up", "fix", "polish", or "bring up to standard" an existing skill
• A skill was authored outside skill-creator — hand-written, imported, inherited — and must meet the current bar
• A skill has drifted: it predates the standard, or edits left it failing quick_validate.py or below the 85/8 floor
• You are preparing such a skill for asm publish or a catalog

Not for fresh skill-creator output (author with /skill-creator), and not for a report only (asm eval plus quick_validate.py, run directly). Assumes a SKILL.md exists.

Prerequisites

Verify all of these before touching any files. Stop and tell the user if any fails.

• asm is on PATH (command -v asm)
• Python 3 is available — quick_validate.py itself is resolved by Dependency Preflight (mandatory), the only place that handles a miss
• The target skill path contains a SKILL.md
• The working tree has no unrelated uncommitted edits — dirty files get mixed into diffs
• You have write access to the skill directory

Inputs

One of: a local skill path (skills/foo, /abs/path/to/skill), a SKILL.md file path (treated as its parent directory), or a GitHub shorthand (github:owner/repo[:path/to/skill]).

For a GitHub input, ask the user to clone locally first. This skill edits locally; remote editing is out of scope for v1.

The Gates

Hard gates (Gate 1, Gate 2) are mechanical and pass/fail — they alone decide PASS vs BLOCKER. Predictability findings (Phase 2b) are judgment-based and advisory: both gates green with open findings is still a PASS. Green gates do not guarantee the skill drives the same process each run — that is what Phase 2b catches, and references/predictability-audit.md holds its checklist and finding classes.

Gate 1 — Skill-creator standard (must-pass floor)

A skill passes when all of these hold:

• python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" exits 0
• The Frontmatter Audit passes — checklist in references/frontmatter-audit.md
• The body is under 500 lines and under 3000 words
• The description carries a negative-trigger clause naming adjacent domains that should not trigger the skill
• metadata.version is MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH; metadata.author is present
• A docs/README.md, if present, opens with the AI-skip HTML comment
• Any bundled script under scripts/ prints a descriptive error on stderr before exiting
• If the target skill invokes another skill, it carries a dependency preflight naming each dependency, its install command, the command that installs the installer itself, and a verification step (references/skill-creator-checklist.md → Dependency preflight). A target that invokes none needs no such section — never add an empty one

This gate is non-negotiable: asm publish and the catalog rely on it.

Gate 2 — asm-eval 85/8 quality floor (supplementary)

overallScore > 85   AND   min(categories[*].score) >= 8

Stricter than overall alone — 86 with a 5 in testability still fails — so one strong area cannot hide a weak one.

Workflow

Do these phases in order; never skip one or reorder them. Phase 4 is a continuous sidebar running throughout Phase 3, not a standalone step, which is why it has no Step Completion Report of its own.

Phase 0 — Capture baseline against both gates

Save the starting state so the before/after diff is auditable:

mkdir -p .asm-improver
asm eval "$SKILL_PATH" --json > .asm-improver/baseline.json
python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" > .asm-improver/baseline-quickvalidate.txt 2>&1 || true

Then run the Frontmatter Audit from references/frontmatter-audit.md, saving findings to .asm-improver/baseline-frontmatter-audit.md. In a git repo, suggest adding .asm-improver/ to .gitignore.

Read the JSON and note overallScore, grade, all 7 categories[].score, and topSuggestions. Each category's findings carry the measured numbers behind its score — body word count among them. Use those; never approximate by hand.

If the baseline passes both gates, stop: print a one-line summary and skip to the final report. A delegability finding is not a reason to keep going in Mode 1 — offer Mode 2 instead.

Phase 1 — Apply deterministic fixes, then normalize frontmatter

Run the evaluator's auto-fixer for free wins:

asm eval "$SKILL_PATH" --fix --dry-run   # preview the diff
asm eval "$SKILL_PATH" --fix              # write, creates SKILL.md.bak

It handles trailing whitespace, CRLF normalization, and a missing effort. A dry-run reporting "No fixes needed" satisfies this phase — do not apply --fix anyway.

Frontmatter normalization (mandatory after --fix)

When it does write, --fix adds a top-level author: (from git config user.name) and/or version: 0.1.0, both of which quick_validate.py rejects as unexpected keys. Apply references/frontmatter-audit.md → Normalizing asm eval --fix output. Then re-run both checks:

asm eval "$SKILL_PATH" --json > .asm-improver/iter-1.json
python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH"

Many skills jump 5–15 points here without touching the body, and quick_validate.py typically goes from fail to pass.

Phase 2 — Fix Gate 1 failures first

quick_validate.py and the Frontmatter Audit come first because they gate publish. references/skill-creator-checklist.md carries the fix for each failing check — frontmatter, description, body size, the docs/README.md AI-skip notice, script stderr, version, and preflight. Work it top to bottom.

One check has no mechanical validator behind it, so look for it deliberately: Skill invokes another skill with no preflight gate, or one that never explains installation. Detect it by scanning for /skill-name invocations, reads under ~/.claude/skills/ or ~/.agents/skills/, and phases handed to a named skill; remediate with the checklist's Dependency preflight section.

Re-run python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" after every Gate 1 edit. Do not enter Phase 2b until Gate 1 is clean.

Phase 2b — Audit against the predictability rubric (advisory)

With Gate 1 clean, audit against skill-creator's rubric before Phase 3, so findings can steer your category edits. Advisory — never gates, never blocks.

1. Confirm $RUBRIC resolved (Dependency Preflight (mandatory)). If missing, skip fail-soft: log ⚠ predictability audit skipped (rubric unavailable) and go to Phase 3.
2. Walk references/predictability-audit.md, marking each of its 7 items pass or advisory with a specific note, and save the walk to .asm-improver/predictability-audit.md. Item #4's delegability sub-check names which step is not delegable and why; its remediation is Mode 2, never a Mode 1 edit.

Act on a finding only when the fix is targeted — one often lifts an asm-eval category too. Never bloat to satisfy one; that rule is in the same reference.

Phase 3 — Fix the lowest asm-eval categories

Sort the 7 categories ascending and work the lowest first. Stop when all are >= 8 — never chase points a passing category does not need.

For each category below 8:

1. Read references/category-playbook.md for that category's fix patterns
2. Apply them with Edit, or Write when restructuring a whole section
3. Re-run asm eval "$SKILL_PATH" --json and python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH", checking every category's delta, not just the one you edited

Never batch-edit categories blindly. Fixes interact: expanding the body for testability can tank context-efficiency or breach the 500-line cap. One at a time; keep what helps, revert what regresses either gate.

Phase 4 — Watch for cross-gate tradeoffs (sidebar — applies during Phase 3)

A continuous sidebar, not a sequential phase: the gates pull in opposite directions on body length, so a fix that lifts one category can sink another or breach a Gate 1 cap. SKILL.md is loaded whole on every invocation, so each inlined paragraph is a permanent charge against the agent's context window — a budget the context-efficiency score is measuring. Read references/cross-gate-tradeoffs.md once before Phase 3, then default to linking out, not inlining on every edit.

Phase 5 — Bump the target skill's metadata.version

This runs as the last action inside each Phase 6 iteration, not as a one-time pass after it — the number is sequential for narrative only. Bump exactly once per iteration, never once per edit, or the version churns ahead of meaningful change. Record each bump so the report shows baseline → final.

• Patch (x.y.Z): typo fixes, frontmatter-only normalization, wording tweaks
• Minor (x.Y.0): new sections, new references, expanded triggers, added subagents
• Major (X.0.0): restructured workflow, breaking output-format changes

A target with no metadata.version gets one, starting at 1.0.0.

Phase 6 — Loop with a cap

Re-run both checks after every iteration. The loop stops when any of these is true:

Mid-iteration Gate 1 regressions are not regressions. When a Phase 3 edit breaks a Gate 1 check (see Phase 4), drop back into Phase 2, fix it inside the same iteration, then re-run both checks. Count the iteration as a regression only if both gates are still worse afterwards — otherwise ordinary churn trips the 2-regression stop.

Save every iteration to .asm-improver/iter-N.json, with a one-line gate summary in .asm-improver/iter-N-gates.txt, so the report can diff them.

Phase 7 — Write the final report

Write .asm-improver/report.md (layout: references/report-template.md) with three visually distinct sections:

1. Gate status — baseline vs final for both hard gates: quick_validate.py, Frontmatter Audit, overallScore, grade, per-category before/after. This decides PASS vs BLOCKER.
2. Predictability findings (advisory) — Phase 2b per item, each open one with a one-line note; say so if it was skipped fail-soft. Never a gate failure.
3. Unresolved blockers — BLOCKER only, each naming the failed hard gate, the specific check, and what was unresolvable. Predictability findings are never promoted here.

Add the skill path, metadata.version baseline → final, files changed, iterations (N of 8), and key fixes. Never pretend a blocker is a pass. Close the report — and the printed summary — with the Run stats block below.

Run stats (mandatory)

Every run closes its summary with a run-stats block — the last thing printed, after the Phase 7 report. It reports what the run cost and never repeats a metric the report already carries.

elapsed is now - run_started_epoch, where the epoch is the date +%s >&2 in Dependency Preflight (mandatory) — read it off that block's stderr, not a shell variable that need not survive. A stop before that block ran has no anchor, so elapsed prints n/a.

  ┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
  Run stats   elapsed 4m 12s · tokens 128,400 · cost $0.42
              agents 0 · skills 1 · tool calls 63

Fields are fixed and in this order — never reordered, renamed, or added to: elapsed, tokens, cost, agents, skills, tool calls. Per-field formatting: references/run-stats.md.

• tokens and cost are omitted entirely when the host reported no figure — no dangling ·, no placeholder. Never estimate one, and never reconstruct one from host transcripts or logs.
• elapsed, agents, skills, and tool calls always print. A value that cannot be determined prints the literal n/a; 0 is a determined value, correct where true.
• A missing optional figure never suppresses the rest of the block.
• Print the block at every terminal outcome — a completed loop, a BLOCKER, the Phase 0 early exit, a failed prerequisite, an aborted run. Only a run with no output at all has none.

Step Completion Reports (mandatory)

After each phase, emit a compact status block so pass/fail is scannable:

◆ Phase N — [phase name]
··································································
  Frontmatter valid:   √ pass
  quick_validate:      √ pass
  asm overall:         86 → 91
  Min category:        7 → 8
  Target version:      1.2.0 → 1.3.0
  Result:              PASS | FAIL | PARTIAL

√ is pass, × is fail, — is context. Emit one after each of Phase 0, 1, 2, 2b, 3, 5, 6, and 7. Phase 2b's block reports the findings count plus "advisory" or "skipped fail-soft" — that phase never gates.

Acceptance Criteria

The bars that decide the outcome. The full run checklist — every artifact and process obligation — is references/acceptance-criteria.md; walk it before writing the report.

• Baselines captured to .asm-improver/ before any edits, and every iteration re-evaluated against both gates and saved there
• Each Gate 1 check addressed before any Gate 2 work; each category below 8 addressed at least once
• Phase 2b run once Gate 1 is clean, or its fail-soft skip logged — findings never gate the loop
• metadata.version bumped once per iteration that produced edits; the loop stopped on one of Phase 6's 4 conditions
• .asm-improver/report.md exists on exit either way, and the summary closes with the Run stats block
• On PASS: python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" exits 0 AND overallScore > 85 AND min(categories[*].score) >= 8
• On BLOCKER: the report names every failing Gate 1 check and every category still below 8 with a one-line reason each

Expected output

See references/report-template.md for the full PASS and BLOCKER layouts. On BLOCKER, add an ## Unresolved blockers section naming each failing hard gate check with a one-line reason.

Edge Cases

Two rules the phases above do not carry. Every other edge case — no frontmatter, a rejected --fix key, an over-250-char description, a content-pinning test, an over-length body, the 8-iteration cap, GitHub shorthand — is in references/edge-cases.md, read when it arises.

• Destructive action: never rm -rf the skill directory. asm eval --fix creates SKILL.md.bak — leave it until the user explicitly cleans up.
• Gate-passing skill with heavy non-delegable steps: a Mode 2 candidate. Offer the conversion; never edit it under Mode 1.

References

• references/skill-creator-checklist.md — Gate 1 retrofit playbook
• references/frontmatter-audit.md — audit checklist and the asm eval --fix normalization migration
• references/category-playbook.md — per-category fix patterns for Gate 2
• references/predictability-audit.md — Phase 2b advisory checklist
• references/cross-gate-tradeoffs.md — Phase 4 sidebar: body length and the link-out rule
• references/delegation-conversion.md — the Mode 2 procedure
• references/report-template.md — PASS, BLOCKER, and Mode 2 report layouts
• references/acceptance-criteria.md — the full run checklist
• references/run-stats.md — run-stats field definitions
• references/edge-cases.md — the full edge-case list
• Under ~/.claude/skills/skill-creator/: scripts/quick_validate.py (the Gate 1 validator), plus references/frontmatter-rules.md, predictability-rubric.md, and dependency-preflight.md — upstream sources the local references restate self-sufficiently
• asm eval --help, and src/evaluator-core.ts in the ASM repo — how each Gate 2 category is scored