Book Metrics¶
Overall quality statistics for the Custom Skill Developer guide, generated from a full scan of all 17 chapters, the glossary, FAQ, references, and MicroSim index files.
Summary Statistics¶
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total chapters | 17 |
| Total word count (estimated) | ~47,470 |
| Average words per chapter | ~2,792 |
| Total glossary terms | 30 |
| Total FAQ questions | 16 |
| Total MicroSims | 4 |
| Total references cited | 33 |
| Total fenced code blocks (all chapters) | 246 |
| Total Mermaid diagrams | 13 |
| Total tables | 45 |
| Total admonitions (tip, note, warning, example) | 14 |
| External links (chapters + glossary + FAQ + references) | 40 |
Content Coverage by Section¶
Chapters (17 total)¶
The guide spans 17 chapters organized into four parts:
- Part I — Foundations (Chapters 1–3): What skills are, how the ecosystem works, and building your first skill from scratch
- Part II — Skill Anatomy (Chapters 4–7): SKILL.md structure, YAML frontmatter, workflow design, and quality scoring systems
- Part III — Advanced Patterns (Chapters 8–11): Meta-skill routers, token efficiency design, session logging, and pipeline orchestration
- Part IV — Specialized Skills & Deployment (Chapters 12–17): Data format skills, code generation skills, analysis and validation skills, installation, testing, and publishing
Glossary¶
The glossary defines 30 terms following ISO 11179 metadata registry standards — precise, concise, distinct, non-circular, and free of business rules.
FAQ¶
The FAQ contains 16 questions organized across four sections:
- Getting Started (4 questions)
- Building Skills (4 questions)
- Advanced Patterns (4 questions)
- Token Efficiency (2 questions)
- Deployment (3 questions)
- This Guide (3 questions)
MicroSims (4 total)¶
| MicroSim | Directory | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Skill Anatomy Explorer | docs/sims/skill-anatomy-explorer/ |
Interactive visualization of SKILL.md components and how they connect |
| Routing Simulator | docs/sims/routing-decision-tree/ |
Simulates how a meta-skill routes requests through a decision tree |
| Quality Score Calculator | docs/sims/quality-score-calculator/ |
Live rubric scoring tool for evaluating skill output quality |
| Cognify Ecosystem Graph | docs/sims/cognify-ecosystem/ |
vis-network graph of the Cognify skill ecosystem and concept relationships |
References¶
The references file contains 33 cited works organized across six sections:
- Foundational Reading (2 Dario Amodei essays)
- The Agent Skills Standard — Anthropic Official (5 sources)
- Community Analysis (2 sources)
- By Chapter tables (Chapters 1–3, 4–7, 8–11, 12–14, 15–17)
- Industry Context (4 sources)
Content Density Metrics¶
Code Examples¶
246 total fenced code blocks across all 17 chapters, covering:
- YAML frontmatter examples
- Markdown skill body templates
- Python helper scripts (
transform.py,validate_dag.py,classify.py,validate_schema.py) - Bash shell scripts (
install.sh,uninstall.sh,list-skills.sh) - JavaScript (MicroSim templates, smoke test scripts)
- HTML (MicroSim output template)
- JSON (state files, data.json, metadata.json, learning graph format)
- Plain text (directory structures, example session transcripts)
Chapters 6 (Workflow Design) and 5 (YAML Frontmatter) are the most code-intensive with 31 and 22 blocks respectively.
Mermaid Diagrams (13 total)¶
| Chapter | Count | Diagram Type |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Skill execution flowchart |
| 2 | 1 | Three-tier skill hierarchy graph |
| 3 | 2 | Iteration loop flowchart |
| 4 | 1 | SKILL.md document structure graph |
| 6 | 2 | Sequential execution graph, Quality gate decision tree |
| 11 | 1 | 12-step textbook pipeline flowchart |
| 12 | 1 | Learning graph data flow |
| 13 | 1 | Multi-pass code generation flowchart |
| 14 | 2 | Analysis skill flowchart, Quality gate in pipeline |
| 15 | 1 | Skill discovery sequence diagram |
| 16 | 1 | Test-iterate-refine loop flowchart |
Tables (45 total)¶
Tables are concentrated in chapters covering comparison and reference material — particularly Chapters 7 (Quality Scoring), 10 (Session Logging), 2 (Skill Ecosystem), and 3 (Your First Skill).
Admonitions (14 total)¶
| Type | Count | Chapters |
|---|---|---|
!!! tip |
5 | 1, 2, 3, 3, 3 |
!!! warning |
4 | 2, 2, 3, 15 |
!!! example |
4 | 1, 2, 3, 3 |
!!! note / other |
1 | (embedded in Ch05 prose) |
Admonitions are concentrated in the early foundational chapters (1–3) and the installation chapter (15), where callouts flag critical constraints like the 30-skill limit and session restart requirements.
External Links¶
| Source | Count |
|---|---|
| Chapters (all 17) | 2 |
| Glossary | 1 |
| FAQ | 4 |
| References | 33 |
| Total | 40 |
How These Metrics Were Generated¶
This report was produced by the book-metrics-generator skill applied to the custom-skill-developer repository on 2026-02-20. Counts are based on:
- Word counts: Estimated from line counts with content-density adjustment for markdown files mixing prose and code
- Code blocks: Counted as pairs of triple-backtick delimiters (
```); each pair = one block - Mermaid diagrams: Counted as occurrences of
```mermaidopening fences - Tables: Counted as separator rows matching
| --- |patterns; each separator = one table - Admonitions: Counted as lines beginning with
!!! - External links: Counted as occurrences of
[text](https?://...)patterns - Glossary terms: Counted as
**Term**bold definition headers - FAQ questions: Counted as
### QuestionH3 headings - References: Counted as distinct hyperlinked citations in
references.md