validate-skill-against-real-projectlisted
Install: claude install-skill damson/hard-won-skills
# Validate a skill against a real project
A skill reads as correct long after it stopped being correct. Task names invert,
a tool's flag turns out to be a GNU extension, a `grep` returns nothing on a
layout the author never had. None of it is visible by reading — the sentences stay
plausible. Running the skill's own commands is the only check that separates a
procedure that works from one that merely sounds like it does.
## Procedure
### 1. Pick a target that matches the claimed scope
Read the skill's `description` for the scope it claims, then choose a project
inside it. Record what makes this target specific: stack and versions, module
count, OS, shell, and whether the project has ever been built.
```bash
ls -d */ | head; git -C . rev-parse --show-toplevel # candidates and root
uname -sr; echo "$SHELL" # OS and shell
```
Where several projects qualify, **pick the smallest** — fewest modules, plainest
layout. A skill claiming "any project of kind X" claims the whole range, and the
small end is where generic skills break, because the author's own project was not
there. Say which end you tested; one target cannot prove the range.
### 2. Extract every executable claim
Go through the skill and list what can be run or checked:
- commands, and every flag in them
- task, file and directory names it predicts
- assertions about a tool's behaviour ("X rejects Y", "this is a GNU extension")
- anything phrased as a table of expected names
Pro