referral-program

When the user wants to create, optimize, or analyze a referral program, affiliate program, or word-of-mouth strategy. Also use when the user mentions 'referral,' 'affiliate,' 'ambassador,' 'word of mouth,' 'viral loop,' 'refer a friend,' or 'partner program.' This skill covers program design, incentive structure, and growth optimization.

Quality

76%

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tessl review fix ./.claude/skills/referral-program/SKILL.md

Quality

Content

62%Scale 1-3

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

This is a well-structured strategy skill with clear workflows and good organizational patterns, but it suffers from moderate verbosity and limited actionability. It reads more like a marketing playbook than a skill that enables Claude to execute specific tasks—much of the content explains concepts Claude likely already understands. The progressive disclosure structure is reasonable but undermined by inline content that should be in referenced files and by unverifiable external references.

Suggestions

Trim explanatory content Claude already knows (e.g., the Referral vs Affiliate comparison, 'Typical Findings' statistics) and move detailed content like email templates to reference files.

Increase actionability by adding concrete implementation examples—e.g., specific API calls for Rewardful/Tolt setup, actual tracking code snippets, or structured output formats for program design documents.

Move the email sequences and detailed optimization tables to a reference file (e.g., references/email-templates.md) to keep the main skill lean and improve progressive disclosure.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The skill contains some unnecessary explanatory content (e.g., explaining what referral vs affiliate programs are, 'typical findings' statistics, and general marketing concepts Claude already knows). The email templates and some of the descriptive sections could be tightened, but overall it's not egregiously verbose.	2 / 3
Actionability	The skill provides structured guidance with checklists, tables, and step-by-step processes, but it's largely strategic/conceptual rather than executable. There are no concrete code examples, API calls, or tool-specific implementation commands—just general marketing advice and email templates. The guidance is specific enough to be useful but not copy-paste ready for implementation.	2 / 3
Workflow Clarity	The workflow is clearly sequenced: identify trigger moments → design share mechanism → choose incentive structure → optimize → measure. The launch checklist provides explicit before/during/after phases with checkboxes. The optimization section includes clear diagnostic logic (if X problem → Y fix). For a strategy skill without destructive operations, this level of workflow clarity is appropriate.	3 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	The skill references several external files (references/program-examples.md, references/affiliate-programs.md, tools/REGISTRY.md, and multiple tool integration files), which is good structure. However, no bundle files are provided, so these references are unverifiable. Additionally, the main file is quite long (~200+ lines) with content like email templates and the full referral vs affiliate comparison that could be offloaded to reference files.	2 / 3
	Total	9 / 12 Passed

Description

89%Scale 1-3

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

This is a well-structured skill description with strong trigger term coverage and clear completeness, explicitly stating both what the skill does and when to use it. The main weakness is that the capability descriptions are somewhat high-level ('program design, incentive structure, growth optimization') rather than listing specific concrete actions. Overall, it would perform well in a multi-skill selection scenario.

Suggestions

Add more specific concrete actions to improve specificity, e.g., 'design tiered reward structures, calculate referral economics, draft referral messaging, model viral coefficients' instead of the general 'program design, incentive structure, and growth optimization.'

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	The description names the domain (referral/affiliate programs) and mentions some actions ('create, optimize, or analyze') along with areas covered ('program design, incentive structure, and growth optimization'), but these are somewhat general categories rather than multiple specific concrete actions like 'design tiered reward structures, calculate referral conversion rates, draft referral email templates.'	2 / 3
Completeness	Clearly answers both 'what' (create, optimize, or analyze referral/affiliate programs; covers program design, incentive structure, growth optimization) and 'when' (explicit 'Use when' clause with specific trigger terms and scenarios).	3 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	Excellent coverage of natural trigger terms users would say: 'referral,' 'affiliate,' 'ambassador,' 'word of mouth,' 'viral loop,' 'refer a friend,' 'partner program.' These are natural phrases a user would actually use when seeking help with this topic.	3 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	The description carves out a clear niche around referral and affiliate programs with distinct trigger terms like 'viral loop,' 'refer a friend,' and 'ambassador' that are unlikely to conflict with other skills such as general marketing or growth strategy skills.	3 / 3
	Total	11 / 12 Passed

Validation

90%

Warnings & errors only

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 10 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	10 / 11 Passed

Repository: TheCraigHewitt/seomachine
Path: .claude/skills/referral-program/SKILL.md
Commit: e818d5e

Reviewed: 6 days ago

Table of Contents

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