How to use the Survey Analyst agent skill

What is an agent skill and what does Survey Analyst make the agent do?

An agent skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file. The file gives an AI agent step-by-step instructions for one kind of task. Survey Analyst is the skill named survey-analyst, licensed under Apache-2.0, and its description is to clean raw survey responses, run cross-tabulations and charts, and produce an analysis workbook plus a findings report.

Once installed, the agent works through a survey export in order: it reads the questionnaire structure, removes low-quality responses, calculates frequencies, means and cross-tabulations by demographic groups, and groups open-text answers into themes.

• Checks question types, sample size and demographic variables before analysing
• Drops responses with too-short completion time, straight-lining or logical contradictions, and logs each rule with counts
• Produces frequencies, shares, means and Top-2 / Bottom-2 shares for scale questions
• Flags group differences of 10 percentage points or more and marks groups under 30 respondents as indicative only
• Groups open-ended answers into 5-8 themes with counts and verbatim example quotes

Install the survey-analyst skill

Download the ZIP from the skill's page in this directory, then choose one of the two install routes below. The skill's files include SKILL.md.

For a personal install, unzip the download into ~/.claude/skills/. For a single project, unzip it into the project's .claude/skills/ folder. In the Claude apps, you can instead upload the skill under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

• Personal: unzip into ~/.claude/skills/
• Project only: unzip into .claude/skills/ inside your project
• Claude apps: Settings → Capabilities → Skills, then upload

Check that your agent environment can build files

The skill needs spreadsheet tools to build the Excel workbook and document tools to build the Word report. Both must be available in the environment where the agent runs. Without them, the skill cannot produce its two deliverables.

You also need your raw survey data as CSV, an exported table, or pasted text, plus the questionnaire wording. The wording matters: without it, the skill only reports frequencies for option codes and does not interpret them.

• Spreadsheet tools available to the agent (for the Excel workbook)
• Document tools available to the agent (for the Word report)
• Raw responses as CSV, exported table or pasted text
• Questionnaire wording, including option labels

How do you trigger the skill with natural requests?

You do not need a special command. Describe the survey and what you want in plain language, and attach or paste the data. The skill's own quick prompts show the style: ask it to analyse a survey export and write a findings report, or to cross-tabulate a satisfaction survey by respondent group.

The skill will ask follow-up questions if the wording is missing or if it does not know your research purpose and the two or three questions you most want answered. Answering these up front gives a more focused report.

• "Analyse this survey export and write a findings report."
• "Cross-tabulate this satisfaction survey by respondent group."
• "Clean this CSV, drop the speeders and straight-liners, and tell me what was excluded."
• "Break down the satisfaction scores by customer segment and summarise the open-ended comments."

What output will you get?

The skill delivers one Excel workbook with five sheets and one Word report of 4-8 pages. The workbook holds the cleaned data, the cleaning log, per-question statistics built with formulas, cross-tabs and open-ended themes. The report covers the research overview, key findings, question-by-question analysis, group differences, open-ended insights, recommendations and an appendix.

Charts are included for key questions: bar charts for single choice, stacked bars for scales, and clustered columns for group comparisons.

• Sheet "Cleaned data" with an exclusion flag column
• Sheet "Cleaning log" with Rule, Excluded and Remaining sample
• Sheet "Per-question stats" using COUNTIF and AVERAGE formulas
• Sheet "Cross-tabs" with groups as rows and options as columns
• Sheet "Open-ended" with Theme, Count and Example quote

Safety notes: scripts and network access

Survey Analyst does not run scripts and does not use the network, according to its listing. It works through the spreadsheet and document tools available in your agent environment.

The skill removes personal data columns such as phone, name or company from the analysis workbook during cleaning and notes this in the log. Still, check your exports for personal data before you upload them, because the cleaned data sheet keeps the rest of the responses.

• Runs scripts: no
• Uses network: no
• Personal columns (phone, name, company) are dropped and logged

Tips for reliable results

Provide the question wording and option labels every time. State the sample's source and how respondents were recruited, because the skill cannot correct sampling bias. Treat small groups as indicative only, and read the cleaning log before trusting the counts.

• Give full question wording and option labels
• Tell the agent the research purpose and your top two or three questions
• Check the cleaning log counts against your expectations
• Ignore differences in groups under 30 respondents when drawing conclusions