/health-check — 8-Dimension Project Assessment
What
Runs a data-driven health assessment across 8 dimensions, each graded A-F with
the specific data points that produced the grade, and rolls them into a GPA.
Gut feeling is not a grade: every dimension uses MCP tools or CLI commands, and
every grade below A comes with specific, prioritized, effort-estimated fixes —
"add test classes for OrderService, PaymentProcessor, ShippingCalculator" is
actionable; "improve test coverage" is not.
This skill owns the
canonical grading system for the kit. The full rubrics,
GPA scale, and report template live in
references/grading-rubric.md
— load
that file when running an assessment.
Tone is diagnostic, not punitive: a C grade is an improvement path, not a
failure.
When
- Onboarding to an unfamiliar or new project — set the baseline
- "How healthy is this?", "grade this project", "codebase review", "report card"
- Pre-release quality gate, or monthly/quarterly maintenance review
- After a cleanup sprint () — re-grade to show progress
- Tech-debt prioritization — lowest grades get the next sprint's attention
How
Step 1: Choose Scope
| Scenario | Dimensions |
|---|
| Full assessment (onboarding, pre-release, monthly review) | All 8 |
| Quick health (mid-sprint checkpoint, before a demo, after a merge) | 1-4 only |
| After major refactor | 1 (Build), 3 (Architecture), 4 (Tests) |
| Post-dependency update | 1 (Build), 7 (Security) |
| After cleanup sprint | Re-grade only the cleaned dimensions |
Step 2: Run the Dimensions
Read
references/grading-rubric.md
for the grade thresholds, then collect data
per dimension. For deep code-quality dimensions, delegate to the
agent with the
skill.
| # | Dimension | Data source |
|---|
| 1 | Build Health | dotnet build --no-restore
— errors + warnings |
| 2 | Code Quality | MCP — read , grade high-confidence only |
| 3 | Architecture | MCP + detect_circular_dependencies
(projects AND types) |
| 4 | Test Coverage | MCP — check first (structural, not line coverage) |
| 5 | Dead Code | MCP find_dead_code(scope: "solution")
— grade high-confidence; ignore |
| 6 | API Surface | MCP + — overexposure, return-type consistency |
| 7 | Security Posture | dotnet list package --vulnerable --include-transitive
+ secrets/auth spot check (deep dive: ) |
| 8 | Documentation | XML doc coverage on public APIs + README currency |
Step 2.5: Triage Gate (before any grade is assigned)
Detector output is evidence, not a grade. Pass every finding through this gate
first — it is what stops a noisy count becoming a wrong letter.
- Read , not the violation list. is complete even
when the list is truncated. Never sample a truncated list and extrapolate.
- Drop . Record the count and
summary.suppressionConfig
in the
report so suppression stays visible.
- Set aside . These are review items, not grade inputs. Summarise
them by category; do not fix or count them.
- Grade only. These are wrong regardless of context.
- Check invariants. If a signal contradicts something the target repo's
CLAUDE.md documents as deliberate, the invariant wins — verify before grading.
- Read before asserting. Never describe a finding you have not opened. If
you cannot open all of them, report the ones you did and say so.
Fill in the triage table from
references/grading-rubric.md
as you go. If the
table cannot be filled, the dimension is not ready to grade.
Step 3: Grade and Aggregate
Apply the rubric thresholds exactly — never grade on a curve ("pretty good for
a project this size" is how standards erode; 15 warnings is a C regardless of
project size). Convert to GPA (A=4.0 … F=0.0), averaging only the dimensions
actually graded — a dimension marked "Not assessed" is excluded from the GPA,
never scored as an F.
Step 4: Report
Produce the report card from the template in
references/grading-rubric.md
:
grades table with key findings, overall GPA, and priority recommendations —
each with named types/files, priority order, and effort estimates. If a
previous report exists, append the trend comparison table.
Example
User: /health-check
Claude: Running full 8-dimension assessment...
| Dimension | Grade | Key Finding |
|-----------|-------|-------------|
| Build Health | A | 0 errors, 2 warnings |
| Code Quality | B | 3 high-confidence findings in 4.2K lines; 31 medium untriaged |
| Architecture | A | Clean direction, 0 cycles |
| Test Coverage | Not assessed | Integration-driven suite — structural metric invalid |
| Dead Code | B | 5 unused methods (79 convention-discovered, not counted) |
| API Surface | B | 2 overexposed service types |
| Security | A | 0 vulnerable packages |
| Documentation | D | 12/30 public APIs documented |
Overall GPA: 3.1 (B) — averaged over 7 graded dimensions.
Triage: 44 AP005 raw → all log-and-rethrow wrappers (medium); 2 AP004 real.
Priority: (1) `SystemSeeder` → `TimeProvider`, ~15 min; (2) XML docs on the 8
endpoint classes, ~1 day; (3) review the 44 catch blocks or suppress by path.
Related
references/grading-rubric.md
— canonical rubrics, GPA scale, report template
- — cleanup pipeline for the issues a health check surfaces
- — deep 6-layer scan behind Dimension 7
- — per-change review (this skill grades the whole project)
- — pass/fail pipeline for a change set, not a graded assessment