Status: Accepted
Date: 2026-06-30

Context

The D8 (Practical Usability) scorer counted code blocks and examples but had no mechanism for assessing whether those examples were linked to specific outcomes. A skill could include many code snippets without connecting them to the results or side effects a user should expect.

Decision

Add an “Outcome Linkage” criterion (3 pts, additive) that checks whether examples or code blocks are paired with outcome descriptions. Use Option B (additive within the flat model) rather than reweighting phantom components. Outcome indicators are only valid within or adjacent to code blocks to avoid false positives from general prose.

Consequences

• D8 rewards example-outcome pairing, not just example volume
• The adjacent-to-code-block rule prevents prose-only skills from gaming the signal
• D8 max remains at 15 (additive, not reweighted)
• Implemented alongside the CLI standardization (ADR-022)