Skip to main content

​
What is Skill Lab?

Skill Lab is a Python CLI tool for evaluating agent skills through static analysis, trigger testing, and trace analysis. It helps you ensure your SKILL.md files meet quality standards and work correctly with AI agents.

19 Static Checks

Comprehensive validation across 4 dimensions: Structure, Naming, Description, and Content

Trigger Testing

Test skill activation with explicit, implicit, contextual, and negative triggers

Quality Scoring

Weighted 0-100 score based on check results to track improvements

LLM-Powered Generation

Auto-generate trigger test cases using Anthropic’s Claude

​
Key Features

​
Static Analysis

Validate your SKILL.md files with 28 comprehensive checks:
  • Structure: File existence, folder organization, frontmatter validation, standard fields
  • Naming: Format validation, directory matching
  • Description: Required fields, length limits, non-empty validation
  • Content: Examples presence, line budget, reference depth

​
Trigger Testing

Test how well your skills activate with 4 trigger types:
  • Explicit: Direct skill name invocation
  • Implicit: Need description without naming the skill
  • Contextual: Realistic prompts with project context
  • Negative: Adjacent requests that should NOT trigger

​
Tool Suite

Skill Lab provides multiple commands for different workflows:

sklab evaluate

Full evaluation with detailed quality report

sklab validate

Quick pass/fail validation for CI/CD

sklab info

Inspect metadata and token cost estimates

sklab prompt

Export skills as XML, Markdown, or JSON

sklab generate

Generate trigger test cases via LLM

sklab trigger

Run trigger tests against real LLM

​
Output Formats

Skill Lab supports multiple output formats:
  • Console: Rich-formatted output with colors and tables (default)
  • JSON: Machine-readable output for CI/CD pipelines and automation
sklab evaluate ./my-skill

​
Quick Example

Here’s what evaluating a skill looks like: 
# Evaluate a skill
sklab evaluate ./my-skill

# Output includes:
# - Quality score (0-100)
# - Check results by dimension
# - Detailed failure messages
# - Suggestions for improvement

​
Next Steps

Installation

Install Skill Lab with pip or uv

Quickstart

Get to your first evaluation in 2 minutes

Static Analysis Guide

Learn about the 19 static checks

Trigger Testing Guide

Set up and run trigger tests

​
Use Cases

Use sklab validate in your CI pipeline to ensure all skills meet quality standards before deployment:
- name: Validate Skills
  run: sklab validate ./skills --format json
Track quality scores over time and identify areas for improvement:
sklab evaluate ./my-skill --verbose
Export skills in the format your agent platform needs:
# XML for Claude
sklab prompt ./skill-a ./skill-b

# JSON for other platforms
sklab prompt ./skills --format json
Generate and run trigger tests to ensure skills activate correctly:
# Generate tests
sklab generate ./my-skill

# Run tests
sklab trigger ./my-skill

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us