Audit: Skills Frontmatter Quality Issues

Skills Frontmatter Audit Report

This issue documents findings from an audit of all 64 SKILL.md files across skills/ and plugins/.

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⚠️ CRITICAL CONTEXT: How Triggers Work in the SDK

Triggers use simple case-insensitive substring matching:

# From openhands-sdk/openhands/sdk/skills/skill.py
def match_trigger(self, message: str) -> str | None:
    if isinstance(self.trigger, KeywordTrigger):
        message_lower = message.lower()
        for keyword in self.trigger.keywords:
            if keyword.lower() in message_lower:  # SUBSTRING MATCH!
                return keyword

This means:

• Trigger "git" will match "github", "digit", "legitimate"
• Trigger "uv" will match "cuve", "suvey", "manuver"
• Trigger "azure" will match "lazure" or any text containing "azure"

This makes many of the issues below much more severe than simple ambiguity - they cause actual false positive activations.

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🔴 CRITICAL ISSUES

1. Skills Without Triggers (4 skills)

These skills cannot be discovered through keyword matching:

Skill	Impact
skills/add-skill	Users cannot naturally discover how to import skills
skills/frontend-design	Will not activate when users ask about building UIs
skills/skill-creator	Will not activate when users want to create skills
skills/theme-factory	Will not activate when users want to style artifacts

Recommendation: Add appropriate keyword triggers like triggers: [frontend design, ui design, web interface] for frontend-design, etc.

2. Dangerously Generic Triggers (CAUSES FALSE POSITIVES)

Due to substring matching, these triggers will activate in unintended contexts:

Trigger	Skills Using It	False Positive Examples
git	bitbucket, github, gitlab, vulnerability-remediation/github	"digital", "legitimate", "github" (activates bitbucket skill!)
uv	skills/uv	"cuve", "suvey", "manuver"
azure	azure-devops	"lazure", any Azure mention
ticket	linear	"ticketing", "sticket"
ssh	skills/ssh	"pussh", "crassh"
npm	skills/npm	(less common but possible)
k8s	skills/kubernetes	(reasonable, well-known abbreviation)

Recommendation:

• Change git to more specific triggers: github repository, gitlab repo, bitbucket repo
• Change uv to uv python, uv package, uv.lock
• Change azure to azure devops, azure repos
• Change ticket to linear ticket, linear issue
• Change ssh to ssh connection, ssh key, remote ssh

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3. Duplicate Triggers Across Skills (30+ conflicts)

Most problematic duplicates:

Trigger	Used By	Issue
git	bitbucket, github, gitlab, vulnerability-remediation/github	4-way conflict + false positives
/codereview	skills/code-review, plugins/pr-review/skills/code-review	Ambiguous which activates
/release-notes	3 different locations	Triple duplication
/sdk	skills/openhands-sdk, plugins/openhands/skills/openhands-sdk	Duplication
All openhands triggers	skills/ AND plugins/openhands/skills/	Intentional? Causes confusion

Recommendation:

• Remove git from all skills OR make each one specific
• Deduplicate skills that exist in both skills/ and plugins/*/skills/

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4. Missing name Field (1 skill)

• plugins/magic-test/skills/magic-word - missing required name field

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🟠 MODERATE ISSUES

5. Skills with ONLY Slash Triggers (no keyword triggers)

These 13 skills cannot be discovered through natural language - they require users to know the exact slash command:

• skills/agent-creator - only /agent-creator
• skills/agent-memory - only /remember
• skills/agent-sdk-builder - only /agent-builder
• skills/code-review - only /codereview, /codereview-roasted
• skills/code-simplifier - only /simplify
• skills/github-pr-review - only /github-pr-review
• skills/iterate - only /iterate, /verify, /babysit
• skills/release-notes - only /release-notes
• plugins/openhands - only /openhands-cloud
• plugins/pr-review/skills/code-review - only slash commands
• plugins/pr-review/skills/github-pr-review - only /github-pr-review
• plugins/release-notes - only /release-notes
• plugins/release-notes/skills/release-notes - only /release-notes

Recommendation: Add keyword triggers alongside slash commands:

• code-review: add review code, code quality, pr feedback
• iterate: add fix ci, address review, merge ready
• release-notes: add changelog, release notes, what changed

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6. Inconsistent Naming Convention

• skills/azure-devops uses azure_devops (underscore) while all other triggers use hyphens

Recommendation: Change to azure-devops for consistency.

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🟡 MINOR ISSUES

7. Very Short Triggers (High False Positive Risk)

Due to substring matching, these are problematic:

Trigger	Length	Risk
uv	2 chars	HIGH - matches many common words
npm	3 chars	Medium - less common substring
ssh	3 chars	Medium - could match edge cases
k8s	3 chars	Low - uncommon substring

8. File Extensions as Triggers

These may be intentional for project-type detection:

• deno.json, deno.jsonc, deno.lock
• uv.lock

Note: These are actually safer than short words because they include the dot.

9. Descriptions Missing "Use When" Guidance (14 skills)

These descriptions do not clearly explain activation context:

• plugins/cobol-modernization/skills/build-setup
• plugins/cobol-modernization/skills/cobol-modernization-overview
• plugins/migration-scoring/skills/* (most)
• skills/github-pr-review
• skills/iterate
• skills/spark-version-upgrade
• skills/theme-factory

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Recommended Trigger Patterns

Based on how the SDK's substring matching works:

Instead of	Use
git	github repository, github repo, git clone
uv	uv python, uv package manager, uv.lock
azure	azure devops, azure repos
ssh	ssh connection, ssh key, remote ssh
ticket	linear ticket, linear issue
Single words	Multi-word phrases (more specific)

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This issue was created by an AI agent (OpenHands) on behalf of the user.

Start with openhands-sdk/openhands/sdk/skills/skill.py to confirm the substring-matching behavior, then inspect the SKILL.md frontmatter under skills/ and plugins/. Address the listed missing, generic, duplicate, and malformed triggers or names, and verify that natural-language activation is specific without breaking the documented slash commands.