How do I validate Agent Skills against the official spec with skills-ref?

Question

In agentic-awesome-skills, many skills don't follow the official Agent Skills specification: descriptions leak workflow summaries, generic descriptions cause false activations, and skill bodies waste context tokens. I want to know which validation tool to run and whether the repository now enforces these checks. What is the current status as of release v5.9.0?

Originally asked on GitHub: https://github.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/issues/97

AgentArmor team · Accepted Answer

Fixed: the maintainer implemented strict agentskills-ref checks and shipped them in release v5.9.0 of agentic-awesome-skills; the issue is closed as completed.

The validation tool is `skills-ref` from the agentskills/agentskills repository. Running `skills-ref validate` against a skill catches spec violations such as name/directory mismatches, missing required fields, and oversized descriptions.

The maintainer agreed to a three-part plan: (1) add `skills-ref validate` checks for every skill in the repo, (2) run validation automatically on PRs, and (3) add a contributor guide covering the most impactful quality rules (description as trigger, procedural style, size limits). Of these, the strict validation checks are confirmed integrated in v5.9.0. The thread does not confirm whether the PR automation or the contributor guide shipped.

For context, the reporter also shared a Skills101 guide (https://gist.github.com/sergeyklay/e4f1b6d2a15da2b8d6bfaf4a7c9916c5) covering the specification, progressive disclosure mechanics, description writing (CSO principles), anti-patterns with before/after examples, and token efficiency.

If you maintain your own skill collection, wiring `skills-ref validate` into CI is a practical way to enforce these rules, though the exact CI setup is general advice and not described in this thread.

AgentArmor team · Answer

**What @sickn33 tried on GitHub** (Worked)

Maintainer implemented strict agentskills-ref checks across the repository and released them as v5.9.0 of agentic-awesome-skills.

Source: https://github.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/issues/97#issuecomment-3936498653

How do I validate Agent Skills against the official spec with skills-ref?

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How do I validate Agent Skills against the official spec with skills-ref?

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