Sensei

“A true master teaches not by telling, but by refining.” – The Skill Sensei

Automates skill frontmatter improvement using the Ralph loop pattern – iteratively improving skills until they reach Medium-High compliance with passing tests, then checking token usage and prompting for action.

Help

When user says “sensei help” or asks how to use sensei, show this:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  SENSEI - Skill Frontmatter Compliance Improver                  ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║                                                                  ║
║  USAGE:                                                          ║
║    Run sensei on <skill-name>              # Single skill        ║
║    Run sensei on <skill-name> --skip-integration  # Fast mode    ║
║    Run sensei on <skill1>, <skill2>, ...   # Multiple skills     ║
║    Run sensei on all Low-adherence skills  # Batch by score      ║
║    Run sensei on all skills                # All skills       ║
║                                                                  ║
║  EXAMPLES:                                                       ║
║    Run sensei on appinsights-instrumentation                     ║
║    Run sensei on azure-security --skip-integration               ║
║    Run sensei on azure-security, azure-observability             ║
║    Run sensei on all Low-adherence skills                        ║
║                                                                  ║
║  WHAT IT DOES:                                                   ║
║    1. READ      - Load skill's SKILL.md, tests, and token count  ║
║    2. SCORE     - Check compliance (Low/Medium/Medium-High/High) ║
║    3. SCAFFOLD  - Create tests from template if missing          ║
║    4. IMPROVE   - Add WHEN: triggers (cross-model optimized)     ║
║    5. TEST      - Run tests, fix if needed                       ║
║    6. REFERENCES- Validate markdown links                        ║
║    7. TOKENS    - Check token budget, gather suggestions         ║
║    8. SUMMARY   - Show before/after with suggestions             ║
║    9. PROMPT    - Ask: Commit, Create Issue, or Skip?            ║
║   10. REPEAT    - Until Medium-High score + tests pass           ║
║                                                                  ║
║  TARGET SCORE: Medium-High                                       ║
║    ✓ Description > 150 chars, ≤ 60 words                         ║
║    ✓ Has "WHEN:" trigger phrases (preferred)                     ║
║    ✓ No "DO NOT USE FOR:" (risky in multi-skill envs)             ║
║    ✓ SKILL.md < 500 tokens (soft limit)                          ║
║                                                                  ║
║  MORE INFO:                                                      ║
║    See .github/skills/sensei/README.md for full documentation    ║
║                                                                  ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

When to Use

• Improving a skill’s frontmatter compliance score
• Adding trigger phrases and anti-triggers to skill descriptions
• Batch-improving multiple skills at once
• Auditing and fixing Low-adherence skills

Invocation Modes

Single Skill

Run sensei on azure-deploy

Multiple Skills

Run sensei on azure-security, azure-observability

By Adherence Level

Run sensei on all Low-adherence skills

All Skills

Run sensei on all skills

The Ralph Loop

For each skill, execute this loop until score >= Medium-High AND tests pass:

1. READ – Load plugin/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md, tests, and token count
2. SCORE – Run spec-based compliance check (see SCORING.md):
   • Validate name per agentskills.io spec (no --, no start/end -, lowercase alphanumeric)
   • Check description length and word count (≤60 words)
   • Check triggers (WHEN: preferred, USE FOR: accepted)
   • Warn on “DO NOT USE FOR:” (risky in multi-skill environments)
   • Preserve optional spec fields (license, metadata, allowed-tools) if present
3. CHECK – If score >= Medium-High AND tests pass → go to TOKENS step
4. SCAFFOLD – If tests/{skill-name}/ doesn’t exist, create from tests/_template/
5. IMPROVE FRONTMATTER – Add WHEN: triggers (stay under 60 words and 1024 chars)
6. IMPROVE TESTS – Update shouldTriggerPrompts and shouldNotTriggerPrompts to match
7. VERIFY – Run cd tests && npm test -- --testPathPattern={skill-name}
8. VALIDATE REFERENCES – Run cd scripts && npm run references {skill-name} to check markdown links
9. TOKENS – Check token budget and line count (< 500 lines per spec), gather optimization suggestions
10. SUMMARY – Display before/after comparison with unimplemented suggestions
11. PROMPT – Ask user: Commit, Create Issue, or Skip?
12. REPEAT – Go to step 2 (max 5 iterations per skill)

Scoring Criteria (Quick Reference)

Sensei validates skills against the agentskills.io specification. See SCORING.md for full details.

Target: Medium-High (distinctive triggers, concise description)

⚠️ “DO NOT USE FOR:” is risky in multi-skill environments (15+ overlapping skills) — causes keyword contamination on fast-pattern-matching models. Safe for small, isolated skill sets. Use positive routing with WHEN: for cross-model safety.

Strongly recommended (reported as suggestions if missing):

• license — identifies the license applied to the skill
• metadata.version — tracks the skill version for consumers

Frontmatter Template

Per the agentskills.io spec, required and optional fields:

---
name: skill-name
description: "[ACTION VERB] [UNIQUE_DOMAIN]. [One clarifying sentence]. WHEN: \"trigger 1\", \"trigger 2\", \"trigger 3\"."
license: MIT
metadata:
  version: "1.0"
# Other optional spec fields — preserve if already present:
# metadata.author: example-org
# allowed-tools: Bash(git:*) Read
---

IMPORTANT: Use inline double-quoted strings for descriptions. Do NOT use >- folded scalars (incompatible with skills.sh). Do NOT use | literal blocks (preserves newlines). Keep total description under 1024 characters and ≤60 words.

⚠️ “DO NOT USE FOR:” carries context-dependent risk. In multi-skill environments (10+ skills with overlapping domains), anti-trigger clauses introduce the very keywords that cause wrong-skill activation on Claude Sonnet and fast-pattern-matching models (evidence). For small, isolated skill sets (1-5 skills), the risk is low. When in doubt, use positive routing with WHEN: and distinctive quoted phrases.

Test Scaffolding

When tests don’t exist, scaffold from tests/_template/:

cp -r tests/_template tests/{skill-name}

Then update:

1. SKILL_NAME constant in all test files
2. shouldTriggerPrompts – 5+ prompts matching new frontmatter triggers
3. shouldNotTriggerPrompts – 5+ prompts matching anti-triggers

Commit Messages:

sensei: improve {skill-name} frontmatter

Constraints

• Only modify plugin/skills/ – these are the Azure skills used by Copilot
• .github/skills/ contains meta-skills like sensei for developer tooling
• Max 5 iterations per skill before moving on
• Description must stay under 1024 characters
• SKILL.md should stay under 500 tokens (soft limit)
• Tests must pass before prompting for action
• User chooses: Commit, Create Issue, or Skip after each skill

Flags

⚠️ Skipping integration tests speeds up the loop but may miss runtime issues. Consider running full tests before final commit.

Reference Documentation

• SCORING.md – Detailed scoring criteria
• LOOP.md – Ralph loop workflow details
• EXAMPLES.md – Before/after examples
• TOKEN-INTEGRATION.md – Token budget integration

Related Skills

• markdown-token-optimizer – Token analysis and optimization
• skill-authoring – Skill writing guidelines