claude-marketplace-evaluator

cme is a CLI for Claude Code marketplace health. It validates that skills route correctly and detects functional overlap between skills — without running expensive LLM-based eval suites.

Marketplace health is not about optimizing skill descriptions. It is about catching structural problems early: missing evals, broken routing, and overlapping skills that confuse Claude's router. cme runs fast, fits in CI, and fails loud.

Installation

Zero-install with uvx (recommended for CI):

uvx --from claude-marketplace-evaluator cme --help

Or install globally:

pip install claude-marketplace-evaluator

Commands

cme routing

Three-step pipeline that generates routing tests, checks coverage, and runs evals:

1. Generate — reads evals/evals.json from each skill directory, produces routing test YAML
2. Coverage check — verifies every skill has an evals file (fails if below threshold)
3. Routing eval runner — sends each prompt through the Claude Agent SDK, checks Claude routes to the expected skill

cme routing --plugins-dir plugins/

Exit codes: 0 = all checks pass, 1 = coverage or routing threshold not met.

cme overlap

Detects functional overlap between skills across a marketplace. Two skills overlap when they perform the same action, produce the same output, or serve the same purpose — regardless of how they are triggered. Uses an LLM to analyze skill descriptions and allowed-tools and produces a JSON report with severity: high | medium | low findings.

Supports two modes:

• Full-scan (default): analyzes all skill pairs. Best for scheduled audits.
• PR-aware (--new-skill): checks only new skills against the existing catalog. Best for CI on pull requests.

# Full-scan (scheduled audit)
cme overlap --plugins-dir plugins/ --output overlap-report.json

# PR-aware (CI on new skill)
cme overlap --plugins-dir plugins/ --new-skill plugins/my-plugin/skills/new-skill --format github

Exit codes:

• Full-scan mode: 0 = no findings, 1 = any finding (HIGH, MEDIUM, or LOW)
• PR-aware mode: 0 = no HIGH findings, 1 = at least one HIGH finding

Note: Due to LLM non-determinism in severity classification, we recommend running cme overlap (full-scan) on a scheduled cron rather than relying solely on PR-aware CI.

The output report structure:

{
  "timestamp": "2026-04-17T00:00:00+00:00",
  "model_used": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
  "mode": "full-scan",
  "total_skills_analyzed": 6,
  "new_skills_checked": 0,
  "total_findings": 1,
  "findings": [
    {
      "skill_a": "plugins/my-plugin/skills/create-pr",
      "skill_b": "plugins/my-plugin/skills/submit-pr",
      "functional_summary": "Both skills create GitHub pull requests from the current branch.",
      "shared_tools": ["Bash", "Read"],
      "severity": "high",
      "recommendation": "Merge into a single create-pr skill.",
      "explanation": "These skills perform identical actions — pushing a branch and opening a PR via gh CLI. A user would get the same result from either."
    }
  ]
}

Plugin Layout

cme expects this directory structure:

plugins/
  <plugin-name>/
    skills/
      <skill-name>/
        SKILL.md
        evals/
          evals.json

Each evals.json is a JSON array of routing test entries:

[
  { "query": "Run the test suite for this project", "should_trigger": true },
  { "query": "Can you execute the unit tests?", "should_trigger": true },
  { "query": "Open a pull request for this branch", "should_trigger": false }
]

Only should_trigger: true entries are used to generate routing test cases. Include should_trigger: false entries to document negative cases (used by overlap detection for trigger context).

Authentication

cme does not manage credentials. It passes through environment variables to the Claude Agent SDK. Configure one of these auth modes:

Claude subscription (OAuth)

For users with a Claude Pro/Team/Enterprise subscription:

claude setup-token              # generates the token
export CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN="your-token"
cme routing --plugins-dir plugins/

Direct API key

For direct Anthropic API access:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
cme routing --plugins-dir plugins/

Databricks AI Gateway

For routing through Databricks AI Gateway, map your workspace secrets to the standard Anthropic SDK env vars:

export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="<DATABRICKS_SP_TOKEN>"           # service principal PAT
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="<DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_URL>"       # AI Gateway endpoint URL
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL="<DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_MODEL>"        # endpoint model name
export ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS="x-databricks-use-coding-agent-mode: true"
export CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_BETAS="1"
export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_FINE_GRAINED_TOOL_STREAMING=""
cme routing --plugins-dir plugins/

In GitHub Actions, these map directly from repository secrets:

env:
  ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_SP_TOKEN }}
  ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_URL }}
  ANTHROPIC_MODEL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_MODEL }}
  ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS: "x-databricks-use-coding-agent-mode: true"
  CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_BETAS: "1"
  CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_FINE_GRAINED_TOOL_STREAMING: ""

CI/CD Integration

GitHub Actions workflow

This is a production workflow from claude-marketplace-builder that runs both cme routing and cme overlap on every PR that touches plugin files:

name: CME Checks

on:
  pull_request:
    paths:
      - "plugins/**"
      - "evals/**"
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  coverage:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: cicd
    timeout-minutes: 30
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v4
      - name: Check eval coverage and routing
        env:
          ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_SP_TOKEN }}
          ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_URL }}
          ANTHROPIC_MODEL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_MODEL }}
          ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS: "x-databricks-use-coding-agent-mode: true"
          CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_BETAS: "1"
        run: uvx --from claude-marketplace-evaluator cme routing --plugins-dir plugins/ --coverage-threshold 100 --threshold 95 --timeout 180

  overlap:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: cicd
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v4
      - name: Check skill overlap
        env:
          ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_SP_TOKEN }}
          ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_URL }}
          ANTHROPIC_MODEL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_MODEL }}
          ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS: "x-databricks-use-coding-agent-mode: true"
          CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_BETAS: "1"
        run: |
          set +e
          uvx --from claude-marketplace-evaluator cme overlap --plugins-dir plugins/ --output overlap-report.json --format github
          EXIT_CODE=$?
          if [ -f overlap-report.json ]; then
            echo "## Overlap Report" >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
            echo '```json' >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
            cat overlap-report.json >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
            echo '```' >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
          fi
          exit $EXIT_CODE

Posting overlap results as a PR comment

Extend the overlap job to post a formatted collision table as a PR comment using actions/github-script:

  overlap:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: cicd
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v4
      - name: Check skill overlap
        id: overlap
        env:
          ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_SP_TOKEN }}
          ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_URL }}
          ANTHROPIC_MODEL: ${{ secrets.DATABRICKS_AI_GATEWAY_MODEL }}
          ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS: "x-databricks-use-coding-agent-mode: true"
          CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_BETAS: "1"
        run: |
          set +e
          uvx --from claude-marketplace-evaluator cme overlap --plugins-dir plugins/ --output overlap-report.json --format github > overlap-comment.md
          echo "exit_code=$?" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
          if [ -f overlap-report.json ]; then
            echo "## Overlap Report" >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
            echo '```json' >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
            cat overlap-report.json >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
            echo '```' >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
          fi

      - name: Comment on PR with overlap results
        if: always() && github.event_name == 'pull_request'
        uses: actions/github-script@v7
        with:
          script: |
            const fs = require('fs');
            const commentPath = 'overlap-comment.md';
            if (!fs.existsSync(commentPath)) return;

            const body = fs.readFileSync(commentPath, 'utf8').trim();
            if (!body) return;

            // Delete previous cme comments to avoid spam
            const { data: comments } = await github.rest.issues.listComments({
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              issue_number: context.issue.number,
            });
            for (const comment of comments) {
              if (comment.body.startsWith('## Skill Overlap Report')) {
                await github.rest.issues.deleteComment({
                  owner: context.repo.owner,
                  repo: context.repo.repo,
                  comment_id: comment.id,
                });
              }
            }

            await github.rest.issues.createComment({
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              issue_number: context.issue.number,
              body,
            });

      - name: Fail on collisions
        if: steps.overlap.outputs.exit_code != '0'
        run: exit 1

Local Usage

Run against a local plugins directory:

# Coverage check only (skip routing evals)
cme routing --plugins-dir ./plugins --threshold 0

# Full routing pipeline
cme routing --plugins-dir ./plugins --timeout 60

# Overlap detection
cme overlap --plugins-dir ./plugins

# Increase parallelism for large marketplaces
cme routing --plugins-dir ./plugins -j 8 --timeout 120

# Run only plugins matching a pattern
cme routing --plugins-dir ./plugins --plugin "git-*"
cme routing --plugins-dir ./plugins --plugin "git-*" --plugin "slack-*"

# Increase max agent turns for complex multi-step skills
cme routing --plugins-dir ./plugins --max-turns 10

# Debug mode (verbose Agent SDK logging)
CME_DEBUG=1 cme routing --plugins-dir ./plugins

Two-Tier Eval Strategy

cme is designed as the fast, structural first tier of a two-tier evaluation approach:

Tier 1: cme (fast, free, structural)

• Runs in seconds to minutes
• Coverage checks require zero LLM calls
• Routing evals use one short Agent SDK call per test case
• Catches missing evals, broken routing, and skill collisions
• Runs on every PR in CI

Tier 2: Full LLM eval runners (deep, expensive)

• Runs multi-turn conversations testing skill behavior end-to-end
• Validates output quality, not just routing correctness
• Costs significantly more in tokens and time
• Runs on release branches or nightly schedules

cme answers "did Claude pick the right skill?" — it does not answer "did the skill produce a good result?" Use tier 1 to gate PRs cheaply, then run tier 2 for deeper validation on release candidates.

Development

uv sync
pre-commit install
make check   # lint + format + typecheck
make test    # pytest