Skill Compass is a diagnostics and validation tool designed to optimize description-based triggering and eliminate silent activation failures in AI agents.
Install & Download
1. ClawHub CLI
The fastest way to install a skill directly from the registry.
npx clawhub@latest install skill-compass-guardian
2. Manual Installation
Copy the skill folder to one of these locations
~/.openclaw/skills/ <project>/skills/ Priority: Workspace > Local > Bundled
3. Prompt Installation
Copy this prompt to OpenClaw to install it automatically.
Help me install skill-compass-guardian using Clawhub. If Clawhub is not installed, install it first (npm i -g clawhub).
Prefer to download?
Get the raw skill files in a ZIP archive.
What is Skill Compass?
Skill Compass is a dedicated utility built to tackle a major efficiency bottleneck in agent systems: triggering failures. Research shows that up to 65% of custom skill issues stem from poorly configured YAML headers, unquoted colons, or ambiguous descriptions that degrade semantic matching. This tool provides automated diagnostics and structural rules to guarantee your skills fire reliably every single time.
By prioritizing directive over descriptive vocabulary, the tool dramatically improves activation rates for developer-authored workflows. For teams building Openclaw Skills, Skill Compass ensures descriptions are condensed within optimized token budgets, routes match semantic intent, and directory hierarchies register with the running agent flawlessly.
Skill Compass Use Cases
- You need to troubleshoot why certain Openclaw Skills fail to load or activate during an agent session.
- You want to audit directory pathways and verify if custom commands are registered correctly.
- Your agent context is overflowing, and you need to optimize frontmatter token usage.
- Multiple skills collide on identical vocabulary, causing the agent to select the wrong tool.
- You want to implement automated continuous integration checks to flag broken YAML syntax before deployment.
How Skill Compass Works
- Discovery and Directory Parsing: Scan global, workspace, and local configuration folders to trace all active Openclaw Skills.
- Frontmatter & Syntax Validation: Parse YAML files to catch syntactic blockades like trailing whitespaces, unquoted colons, or multi-line truncations.
- Directive vs. Descriptive Audit: Score individual descriptions on directive language, keyword presence, and semantic clarity.
- Conflict & Overlap Resolution: Flag trigger-keyword collisions that confuse the agent and suggest explicit negative constraints.
- Auto-Remediation & Testing: Apply safe command line repairs, update context-budget variables, and recalibrate matching performance through real user queries.
Skill Compass Setup
To manage your Openclaw Skills with Skill Compass, you can quickly integrate audit validations directly within your project workspace.
Ensure your agent-skills directory structure aligns with default pathways, then run the validation suite:
# Audit your local skills directory
python3 scripts/audit_skills.py --skills-dir ./skills
# Run audit and automatically apply syntax fixes
python3 scripts/audit_skills.py --skills-dir ~/.openclaw/skills --fix
To prevent token dropouts when managing multiple skills, configure your shell context budget parameter:
export SLASH_COMMAND_TOOL_CHAR_BUDGET=30000
Skill Compass Data Schema & Taxonomy
Skill Compass organizes its diagnostic checks and operational outputs around structured audit reports and configuration guidelines.
Companion Files & Scripts
| Executable File | Operation | Target Output |
|---|---|---|
scripts/audit_skills.py |
Command line validation | Corrects YAML frontmatter headers, checks length, outputs JSON logs |
scripts/analyze_failures.py |
Calibration processing | Evaluates user query mismatch events against expected triggers |
references/failure-patterns.md |
Reference Markdown | Synthesizes community issues, detailing real-world activation bugs |
Structured Frontmatter Schema
Your Openclaw Skills files must match the optimized design template to maximize match reliability:
---
name: skill-identifier
description: "ALWAYS invoke when user creates, edits, or inspects [target]. Do not use for [unrelated task]. Keywords: [term1], [term2]"
---
Skill Compass Advanced Features
- Auto-Correction Engine: Automatically converts unquoted colons, trims long texts, and wraps frontmatter descriptions in compliant formatting strings.
- Token Budget Analysis: Tracks real-time context metrics to stop agent frameworks from silently discarding active Openclaw Skills.
- Three-Part Formula Template: Directs developer writing styles toward imperative structures that hit close to 100% activation rates.
- Log Calibration Feedback Loop: Evaluates production runtime errors to iteratively update, test, and calibrate trigger conditions based on historical interactions.
SKILL.md
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