Isn’t this just a Claude skill?

Partly: your mentor is Claude, coaching you in your own account. Tempered adds what a conversation can’t give itself: an expert’s method to coach from, a separate grader that decides when you’ve got it, and a record of everything you’ve shown.

Find your program If the method is yours

In your ClaudeThe mentor

Coaches you through each step, and through your own work between sessions.

Added by Tempered

An expert’s method
Steps drawn from their material, each with a mastery criterion, fitted to your goals.
A separate grader
Decides when you’ve got it. The conversation that coaches you never scores you.
A record that lasts
Your starting point and every pass, with its score and the grader’s note.
A rank you earn
Earned only by graded evidence, never by time spent.

Can’t I just ask Claude to coach me?

You can, and Tempered’s mentor is Claude too, running in your own account. The difference is what it coaches from. Ask Claude cold and it improvises a course from whatever it knows. On Tempered it follows an expert’s method: steps drawn from their material, each with a mastery criterion, and their own coaching instructions.

And it starts from you. The intake asks about your goals and keeps your answers in your own words, and each step brings the mentor only the passages of the expert’s material that step needs.

Sample step

Step 2Name your price, then stop

Mastery criterion: States the price once, without apology or discount, and waits for the reply.
From the expert: The passages on anchoring and on silence, brought in when you reach this step.
Your starting point: “I always drop the number the moment they hesitate.”

Can’t Claude tell me when I’ve got it?

It will, and that’s the trouble. A skill leaves the verdict to the same conversation that has been encouraging you, and a conversation that marks its own work tends to pass it.

On Tempered the mentor never scores you. When you’re ready, a separate grader re-reads the step’s mastery criterion and your own turns, then passes the step at 70 or sends it back with a note on what is still missing.

A skill

One conversationCoaches youDecides you’ve got it

Tempered

In your ClaudeMentor coaches you

On TemperedGrader decides

What does a separate grader change?

It hasn’t watched you struggle, it doesn’t know which hints were given, and it has no reason to be kind. So a pass means the same thing for everyone in the program: you met the expert’s criterion, in your own words.

It can still be wrong, so you can contest a score. Your argument goes to the expert word for word, and they rule on it.

Sample. Each try under the line goes back to practice with the grader’s note.

Won’t Claude remember me anyway?

It may remember things about you. That isn’t a record. Tempered keeps your starting point from the intake, in your own words, and every step you’ve passed with its score and the grader’s note.

So a session next week, or three months from now, picks up from what you’ve shown rather than from what you remember to tell it. You see the same record on your progress page.

Sample record

Week 1Starting point setFrom your intake, in your own words.
Week 2Step 1 passed78
Week 3Step 2, not yetNames the price, then apologises for it.62
Week 4Step 2 passed81

What do I have at the end?

A rank, and a rank is earned only by graded evidence, never by time spent or material finished. Apprentice means you passed the program’s steps with the mentor beside you. Journeyman and Master each take a graded proof on your own work; they open later.

A skill can tell you that you’ve mastered something. Tempered shows you why: every pass sits in your record with its score and the grader’s note.

strawApprenticeCan do it with help.

bronze to purpleJourneymanDoes it alone, on real work.Opens later

blueMasterDoes it under pressure, and can teach it.Opens later

If the method is yours

Why not sell it as a skill?: You could. But a skill is a file: whoever has it has all of it, can pass it on, and keeps the version they bought. On Tempered your material stays with us and reaches each learner’s mentor a passage at a time, as a step needs it.
Isn’t the mentor just a prompt?: Partly, and the prompt is yours: your coaching instructions and your material steer every session. What makes it a program is around it: a curriculum drawn from your sources with a mastery criterion on every step, an intake that learns each learner’s goals, and a grader that holds your bar the same way for everyone.
How will I know it’s working?: You see where each learner stands: who is moving, who is stuck, and on which step. When a learner contests a score, their argument reaches you word for word and you make the call. A skill, once sold, tells you nothing.

Claude for the coaching. Tempered for the proof

Keep the Claude you already use. A program adds what a skill can’t carry: an expert’s method laid out step by step, a grader that holds the bar, and a record of what you’ve shown.

Find your program