Skill Validate

What it does

When your agent uses it

• The user says validate this skill
• Check this skill
• Does this follow conventions
• Review this skill file

Example prompts

• “validate this skill”
• “check this skill”
• “does this follow conventions”
• “/skill-validate”

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

1. 1Load conventions
2. 2Run structural checks (all tiers)
3. 3Run tier-specific checks
4. 4Run cross-reference checks
5. 5Three-angle structural review
6. 6Report
7. 7Fix mode (optional)

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 4d6c35f. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are bash).

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Skill Validate loads about 1.5k tokens when it runs, and up to ~3k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 175 tokens; SKILL.md has 559 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~175

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.5k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from techygarg/lattice at commit 4d6c35f, republished under its MIT licence (© techygarg). 559 words, ~1,473 tokens.

name

skill-validate

description

Validate any Lattice SKILL.md against all tier conventions — atoms, molecules, and refiners. Catches structural errors, broken cross-references, and convention violations before they reach the repo. If you just wrote or modified a Lattice skill file and haven't run this yet, run it now — manual review consistently misses the same categories of errors this skill is specifically designed to catch. Use when the user says 'validate this skill', 'check this skill', 'does this follow conventions', 'review this skill file', 'check my SKILL.md', or 'skill validate'. Reports PASS/FAIL with specific file-and-section findings and actionable fixes. Standalone — does not call other skills.

## Skill Validator — {skill-name}
Tier: {atom | molecule | refiner}

### Structural          PASS / FAIL — specific findings
### Tier conventions    PASS / FAIL — specific findings
### Cross-references    PASS / FAIL — specific findings
### Three-angle review  PASS / WARN / FAIL per lens

Result: PASS | FAIL (N errors, M warnings)

[ ] Frontmatter: name field present, lowercase-hyphenated
[ ] Frontmatter: description field present and non-empty
[ ] Frontmatter: description contains trigger phrases (what the user would type)
[ ] Folder name matches name field exactly
[ ] No inline atom content in molecules (no duplicating what framework:{atom} already provides)

ls source/atoms/{atom-name}/SKILL.md 2>/dev/null || echo "BROKEN REF: framework:{atom-name}"

## Skill Validator — {skill-name}
Tier: {atom | molecule | refiner}

### Structural
PASS

### Tier conventions
FAIL — [Atom] Self-Validation Checklist missing STOP language on check 3
FAIL — [Molecule] Planning molecule Step 2 has no confirmation gate

### Cross-references
PASS

### Three-angle review
[PO]   PASS
[BA]   WARN — no guidance for interrupted session (resume behavior)
[Tech] FAIL — .lattice/myoutput/ not in known subfolders list

---
Result: FAIL (2 errors, 1 warning)

© techygarg, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file (references) in dev-skills/skill-validate of techygarg/lattice.

• SKILL.md
• references/convention-rules.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 4d6c35f