Skill Auto-Improver

You are running an eval-driven improvement loop for a SKILL.md-based skill. The target skill must clear two gates in this order:

1. Skill-creator standard (must-pass floor) — python scripts/quick_validate.py is clean; the Frontmatter Audit passes; SKILL.md is under 500 lines; description has a negative-trigger clause; metadata.version and metadata.author are present; docs/README.md (if it exists) carries the AI-skip notice; bundled scripts print descriptive errors before exiting.
2. asm eval quality floor (supplementary) — overallScore > 85 AND every category score >= 8.

A skill that scores 92 on asm eval but fails quick_validate.py is not done. A skill that passes quick_validate.py but scores 70 on asm eval is not done. Both gates must clear, or the loop reports a blocker.

Repo Sync Before Edits (mandatory)

This skill mutates files in a git repo. Before any edit, sync the local branch with the remote:

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

If the working tree is dirty, git stash, sync, then git stash pop. If origin is missing or git pull hits conflicts, stop and ask the user before continuing — do not skip or force the sync.

When to Use

• The user asks to "improve", "level up", "fix", "polish", or "bring up to standard" an existing skill
• A skill fails quick_validate.py or scores below the asm-eval 85/8 floor and must ship
• You are preparing a skill for asm publish or inclusion in a catalog
• You want to dogfood quality improvements on one of your own skills

If the user only wants a report without edits, run asm eval <path> and python scripts/quick_validate.py <path> directly — that is not this skill. If the user is authoring a brand-new skill from scratch, send them to /skill-creator instead — this skill assumes a SKILL.md already exists.

Prerequisites

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

• asm is available on PATH (command -v asm or which asm)
• Python 3 is available, and ~/.claude/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py exists (skill-creator must be installed locally)
• The target skill path contains a SKILL.md file
• The working tree has no unrelated uncommitted edits (dirty files get mixed into diffs)
• You have write access to the skill directory

Resolve the path to skill-creator's validator once at the start and reuse it:

QV="$HOME/.claude/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py"
test -f "$QV" || { echo "skill-creator not installed at $QV"; exit 1; }

Inputs

The user provides one of:

• A local skill path: skills/foo or /abs/path/to/skill
• A direct SKILL.md file path (treated as its parent directory)
• A GitHub shorthand: github:owner/repo or github:owner/repo:path/to/skill

For GitHub inputs, ask the user to clone locally first or whether you should open a PR back to that repo. This skill's default path is local editing — remote editing is out of scope for v1.

The Two Gates

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

A skill passes this gate when all of these are true:

• python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" exits 0 (no unexpected keys, name is kebab-case ≤64 chars, description is single-line ≤1024 chars, etc.)
• The Frontmatter Audit (full checklist in references/frontmatter-audit.md) passes
• SKILL.md body is under 500 lines (split to references/ if not)
• Description includes a negative-trigger clause naming adjacent domains that should not trigger the skill (quick_validate.py warns when missing)
• metadata.version follows MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH; metadata.author is present
• If docs/README.md exists, it carries the AI-skip HTML comment at the top
• Any bundled scripts under scripts/ print descriptive errors on stderr before exiting

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 score alone — a skill at 86 with a 5 in testability still fails. This forces balanced quality instead of letting one strong area hide a weak one.

Workflow

Do these phases in order. Do not skip phases or change the order. Phase 4 is a continuous sidebar that runs throughout Phase 3 — not a standalone step, which is why it does not appear in the per-phase Step Completion Reports.

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 perform the Frontmatter Audit described in references/frontmatter-audit.md and save findings to .asm-improver/baseline-frontmatter-audit.md.

If the target skill lives inside a git repo, suggest adding .asm-improver/ to .gitignore so iteration artifacts stay out of version control.

Read the JSON and note:

• overallScore, grade
• Every categories[].score (7 categories, each out of 10)
• topSuggestions (the evaluator's own priorities)

If the baseline already passes both gates, stop immediately — print a one-line summary and skip to the final report. Do not "improve" a skill that already passes.

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

This handles trailing whitespace, CRLF normalization, missing effort, and other mechanical issues. However, when authorship or version is missing, asm eval --fix writes a top-level author: (from git config user.name) and/or top-level version: 0.1.0 — both of which quick_validate.py rejects as unexpected keys. Immediately follow with the normalization step below.

Frontmatter normalization (mandatory after --fix)

Read references/frontmatter-audit.md — section "Normalizing asm eval --fix output" — for the exact migration. In short:

• Move top-level author: <name> → metadata.author: <name> (keep the value). The current fixer writes author:; older skills may carry a top-level creator: instead — treat it the same way and migrate to metadata.author:.
• Move top-level version: <semver> → metadata.version: <semver> (keep the value)
• Drop any other top-level keys that aren't in the allowed set (name, description, license, allowed-tools, metadata, compatibility, effort) — e.g., legacy tags:. Surface non-trivial drops to the user before deleting.
• Quote any string value containing :, #, -, <, >, |, {, }, [, ], ,, &, *, ?, =, !, %, @, or ` per the YAML safety rule

After normalization, re-run both checks:

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

Many skills jump 5–15 points on asm eval 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 findings come first because they gate publish. Read references/skill-creator-checklist.md for the full retrofit playbook. Common fixes:

• Description missing a negative-trigger clause → append "Don't use for X, Y, Z." naming 2–3 adjacent domains
• Description over 250 chars → trim hedge words, collapse synonyms (1024 is the hard ceiling, 250 is the runtime-budget target)
• Body over 500 lines → split dense sections into references/<topic>.md and replace inline content with a one-line pointer
• Missing AI-skip notice in docs/README.md → prepend the HTML comment from references/skill-creator-checklist.md
• Bundled script exits silently → add echo "Error: ..." >&2 lines before each exit 1 / sys.exit(1)

Re-run python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" after every Gate 1 edit. Do not move to Phase 3 until Gate 1 is clean.

Phase 3 — Fix the lowest asm-eval categories

Sort the 7 categories by score ascending. Work on the lowest one first. Stop when all of them are >= 8.

For each category below 8:

1. Read references/category-playbook.md to find the fix patterns for that category
2. Apply them with Edit (small targeted changes) or Write (when restructuring a whole section)
3. Re-run asm eval "$SKILL_PATH" --json and python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" and check the deltas

Do not batch-edit multiple categories blindly. Fixes can interact — expanding the body for testability can tank context-efficiency or push the body over 500 lines (which fails Gate 1). One category at a time, re-eval after each change, keep the ones that help, revert the ones that regress either gate.

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

These principles apply continuously while doing Phase 3 category fixes, not as a separate sequential phase. Read them once before Phase 3 and keep them in mind on every edit.

The two gates pull in opposite directions on body length:

• asm eval's prompt-engineering rewards bodies up to 3000 words
• asm eval's context-efficiency rewards bodies under 1500 words
• Gate 1 caps SKILL.md at 500 lines (the hard skill-creator rule, ~ a few thousand words)

When you add content, default to linking out, not inlining:

• Long examples → references/examples.md with See references/examples.md for...
• Long scripts → scripts/foo.sh with Run scripts/foo.sh to...
• Long tables → references/rubric.md
• Long prerequisite lists → references/prerequisites.md

This pattern earns context-efficiency points (the words "reference" / "see" / "link" / "template" are scanned for), keeps SKILL.md under the 500-line Gate 1 cap, and reduces token cost on every invocation.

Concretely, if you would need more than ~80 lines to add a section, put it in references/ and link to it from SKILL.md in 2-3 lines.

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

This phase runs as the last action inside each iteration of Phase 6's loop, not as a separate one-time pass after Phase 6. The number is sequential for narrative flow; the actual execution is per-iteration.

Per skill-creator's Version Management rule, every edit to a SKILL.md must bump metadata.version before saving:

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

If the target SKILL.md has no metadata.version, add one starting at 1.0.0. Bump exactly once per loop iteration, not once per edit within an iteration — otherwise the version churns ahead of meaningful change.

Record the bump in the loop log so the final report can show baseline → final version.

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 — a Phase 3 edit can push SKILL.md over the 500-line cap or otherwise break a Gate 1 check (the two gates pull in opposite directions on body length; see Phase 4). When this happens within an iteration, do not let it close the iteration as a regression: drop back into Phase 2, fix the Gate 1 break in the same iteration, then re-run both checks. Only count the iteration as a regression if both gates are still worse than the previous iteration after that fix lands. This prevents the loop from tripping the "2 consecutive regressions" stop condition on a churn that the agent could resolve in-place.

Save every iteration's JSON to .asm-improver/iter-N.json and a one-line gate summary to .asm-improver/iter-N-gates.txt so the final report can diff them.

Phase 7 — Write the final report

On pass, write .asm-improver/report.md with:

• Target skill path
• Baseline vs final for both gates: quick_validate.py status, Frontmatter Audit findings cleared, overallScore, grade, per-category before/after table
• Target skill's metadata.version: baseline → final
• Files changed (list every path under the skill directory that was edited or created)
• Iterations taken (N of 8)
• Key fixes applied (one line per category or audit item that moved)

On blocker, write the same report but add a "Blockers" section explaining why a gate was not cleared. Blocker entries must name the gate (Gate 1 or Gate 2), the specific failing check (e.g., quick_validate.py: unexpected key 'tags'), and what the loop was unable to resolve. Do not pretend a blocker is a pass.

Example blocker entry:

Gate 2 — testability (stuck at 6/10): The evaluator wants verifiable outputs and an "Acceptance Criteria" section. The skill's output is a subjective rewrite of prose, which is hard to express as a testable assertion. Author decision needed: accept a 6 here, or redefine scope so output is machine-checkable.

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

Use √ for pass, × for fail, — for context. Report per phase: Phase 0 (baseline captured), Phase 1 (deterministic + normalization), Phase 2 (Gate 1 fixes), Phase 3 (asm-eval category fixes), Phase 5 (version bump applied), Phase 6 (loop stop condition), Phase 7 (final report written).

Acceptance Criteria

• .asm-improver/baseline.json, .asm-improver/baseline-quickvalidate.txt, and .asm-improver/baseline-frontmatter-audit.md captured before any edits
• asm eval --fix applied, then frontmatter normalized so quick_validate.py accepts the result
• Each Gate 1 check addressed at least once before any Gate 2 work
• Each asm eval category below 8 addressed at least once
• Re-eval against both gates after every iteration, captured to .asm-improver/iter-N.json and .asm-improver/iter-N-gates.txt
• Target skill's metadata.version bumped exactly once per iteration that produced edits
• Loop stops on one of the 4 conditions in Phase 6 — never unbounded
• .asm-improver/report.md exists on exit, pass or blocker
• On PASS: python "$QV" "$SKILL_PATH" exits 0 AND final eval JSON shows overallScore > 85 AND min(categories[*].score) >= 8
• On BLOCKER: report names every Gate 1 check still failing and every category still below 8 with a one-line reason

Expected output

See references/report-template.md for the full PASS and BLOCKER report templates. On BLOCKER, include a ## Blockers section naming each failing gate check with a one-line reason.

Edge Cases

• Skill already passes both gates: stop at Phase 0, skip to report. Do not edit passing skills.
• SKILL.md has no frontmatter: asm eval --fix cannot add it. Ask the user whether to scaffold one (using the skill-creator template) or abort.
• Iterating regresses either gate: revert the last edit (cp SKILL.md.bak SKILL.md if available, or undo via git) and try a different fix pattern from the playbook.
• asm eval --fix writes a key quick_validate.py rejects: this is expected — Phase 1's normalization step handles it. Do not skip the normalization.
• Description over 250 chars after edits: trim. The 250-char target prevents tail-first truncation in Claude Code's /skills listing, which would chop your negative-trigger clause.
• SKILL.md body over 500 lines: split into references/ per the progressive-disclosure rule. SKILL.md must drop below 500 before exit.
• Loop caps out at 8 iterations: the skill has structural issues auto-improvement cannot solve. Write the blocker report and hand back to the user.
• GitHub shorthand input: for v1, ask the user to clone locally first. Remote editing is out of scope.
• Destructive action: never rm -rf the skill directory. asm eval --fix creates SKILL.md.bak — leave it in place until the user explicitly cleans up.

References

• references/skill-creator-checklist.md — Gate 1 retrofit playbook (frontmatter, README, scripts, body length)
• references/frontmatter-audit.md — full audit checklist plus the asm eval --fix normalization migration
• references/category-playbook.md — per-category fix patterns for asm eval Gate 2
• references/report-template.md — PASS and BLOCKER report layouts
• ~/.claude/skills/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py — the Gate 1 mechanical validator
• ~/.claude/skills/skill-creator/references/frontmatter-rules.md — upstream source of the audit rules
• asm eval --help — flag reference for the evaluator
• src/evaluator.ts in the ASM repo — source of truth for how each Gate 2 category is scored