optimizing-skills SKILL.md skillA
This file is byte-identical to the first copy the registry indexed. Same content hash, so the same checks give both the same grade.
optimizing-skills from oaustegard/claude-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add oaustegard/claude-skills/optimizing-skills@v0.3.0Pins v0.3.0 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- oaustegard/claude-skills
- Path
plugins/skill-development/skills/optimizing-skills/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 2
- Latest version
- v0.3.0, committed Sep 5, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jul 7, 2026
- Size
- 9,170 bytes
- Repository stars
- 158
- License
- MIT
Disciplined, validation-gated revision of an EXISTING skill so each edit is a measured improvement rather than a guess. Use when editing, revising, or tuning a skill that already exists and there is evidence it underperforms (observed failures, drift, complaints) — invoke by name, or have versioning-skills / creating-skill defer to it before applying edits. Not for authoring a brand-new skill from scratch (use creating-skill) or one-off prose.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Optimizing Skills Treat the skill document as the parameter under optimization: change it only when the change **demonstrably beats the version you already ship**. This is the discipline distilled from SkillOpt (microsoft/SkillOpt, arXiv:2605.23904) — its training apparatus dropped, its reproducibility discipline kept. The point is to stop editing skills on intuition and start editing them on evidence. ## Core principle A skill edit is only worth shipping if it strictly improves measured behavior on a held-out check. Most edits that *feel* like improvements don't move the needle, and some quietly regress. The gate below is what separates a real improvement from a confident guess. ## The gate — run it every revision 1. **Assemble a held-out check set.** 3–8 representative tasks/prompts the skill should handle well, and it **must include the failure(s) that prompted this revision**. Keep the set fixed across the revision so before/after scores are comparable. 2. **Hold two versions.** `best` = what you currently ship (never let it silently degrade). `candidate` = `best` + your proposed edits. …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add oaustegard/claude-skills/optimizing-skills@sha256:70790889fc81d425The line at the top of this page pins the label v0.3.0, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_g5xwaisfacguhjck)
5 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 2 versions of this file, between Jul 7, 2026 and Sep 5, 2026, about one every 60 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v0.3.0 latest | 2026-09-05 | 59f45d6 | 9,170 B | A | view · diff |
| v0.2.0 | 2026-07-07 | 6154d36 | 6,988 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (9170 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
oaustegard/claude-skills · 158 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-11-07 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_g5xwaisfacguhjck GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=oaustegard/claude-skills/optimizing-skills GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/70790889fc81d425cf6886136284ce5159911786a60b77224cbb6c3fa9976dc5
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.
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