How a program works
An expert’s method, laid out in steps with a bar to clear on each. A mentor coaches you through them inside your own Claude, and a separate grader, one that never coached you, decides when you’ve cleared it.
Every step runs the same four moves
It is how hard skills were passed down long before classrooms: someone shows you, you try, they steady you, and you go again until you can do it without them.
Your mentor runs that loop on each step of the program, on the problems in front of you, and keeps going until you can meet the step’s bar.
01Show
Your mentor walks you through it done well, with a worked example from the method of someone who has done it for years. Real methods from real experts, not a highlight reel.
02Try
You do one, in your own work, with your own stakes. Falling short of the target is how learning starts.
03Refine
Your mentor works from exactly what you did and shows you the next move. It questions the thinking, never the person. No red pen, no ranking you against a class.
04Prove
Show you can do it against a real bar, on your own work. A separate grader reads what you did and decides. Then you move up. Not when you finish the material. When you can do it.
From the first question to the last proof
It starts by asking about you
Your mentor opens with five short questions: what the skill would change for you, what you would see in someone already good at it, what you want, what not having it costs you, and where you will use it. Your answers are kept word for word, because everything after is fitted to them.
Then come a few situations to see where you are starting from, with nothing graded. A separate assessment reads the whole conversation and sets your starting level on every step, so your mentor knows where to spend the time.
- 1What would this skill change for you?
I’d stop knocking money off before anyone asks me to.
- 2What do you see in someone who’s already good at it?
- 3What do you want from it?
- 4What is not having it costing you?
- 5Where will you use it?
Sample intake. Each answer is kept exactly as you typed it. - 1What would this skill change for you?
The expert’s method, one step at a time
Each step comes from the expert’s own material and carries a mastery criterion: what you must be able to show to pass it. Your mentor brings in only the passages that step needs and works on your real problems, not invented ones.
- 01Know your number before the call
- 02Name your price, then stop
Mastery criterionStates the price once, without apology or discount, and waits for the reply.
- 03Let the silence work
- 04Trade, never give
Sample program. Every step carries the bar you must show to pass it. A separate grader decides
When you and your mentor think you’ve got it, the step goes to the grader. It re-reads the criterion and your own turns, then passes the step at 70 or sends it back with a note on what is still missing. A pass opens the next step.
If you think a score is wrong, you can contest it. Your argument goes to the expert word for word, and they rule on it.
02Name your price, then stop
- Try 158Sent back
You named the price, then offered ten percent off before they answered. Say it once and wait.
- Try 276Passed
Sample. A step passes at 70; below it, the note says what is still missing. - Try 158Sent back
Practice it, then bring it back
Between sessions, practice what you are learning on your own work, then bring it back: what you tried, how it went, what you are facing next. Your mentor works through it with you, with the expert’s material to hand. These conversations are never scored, so you can think out loud.
I sent the quote on Tuesday and didn’t add a discount. They’ve gone quiet since.
MentorQuiet isn’t a no. What did you agree would happen next, and by when?
Sample. These conversations are never scored. A rank for what you’ve shown
Pass the program’s steps and you are an Apprentice: you can do it with help. Every pass sits in your record with its score and the grader’s note, so the rank shows its evidence.
Apprentice, earned
- 01Passed 81
- 02Passed 76
- 03Passed 72
- 04Passed 84
Sample. Each pass keeps its score and the grader’s note. Proofs on your own workOpens later
The higher ranks, Journeyman and Master, each take a graded proof: Journeyman for doing it alone in real situations, Master for doing it well under pressure and being able to teach it. Never earned by time spent.
Understanding is shown, not claimed
Finishing the material proves you read it.
It says nothing about whether you can do the thing. So a program never moves you on for time spent or pages turned, only for work that meets the expert’s bar.
A conversation shouldn’t mark its own work.
The mentor that has been encouraging you is the wrong judge of whether you’ve got it, so the judging happens elsewhere, by a grader that reads only the criterion and what you said.
You learn where you already think.
The coaching runs in your own Claude, on your own problems, so nothing is set aside for a course. Tempered keeps the method, the bar and your record.
Start with the skill you need
Every program is one expert’s method, built the same way. Find the one you need, ask for a place, and your mentor takes it from there.
