Pirate Metrics Aarr

Pirate Metrics (AARRR)

Users arrive, wake up, stay, invite, and pay — or leak at one of those five gates. AARRR (Dave McClure's pirate metrics) names the gates so the leakiest one gets found and fixed first. This skill maps the product onto all five, hunts the leak, and writes exactly one experiment. Refuses to fix everything at once, because fixing everything at once measures nothing.

The Five Buckets

1. Acquisition — users arrive from a channel.
2. Activation — first experience delivers the "aha"; the key action happens.
3. Retention — they come back; the curve flattens instead of dying.
4. Referral — they bring others.
5. Revenue — they pay.

A bucket only counts its own event. Misfiled metrics (visits in activation, revenue in acquisition) get moved — most funnels look worse than they are because their buckets lie.

Modes

Map mode (default — user describes a product or pastes scattered metrics)

1. Read references/bucket-metrics.md first.
2. For each bucket, name the event that defines it for THIS product and the metric that measures it. The activation event must be the "aha" moment — the single action after which retention jumps — not a signup-completed proxy.
3. File every metric the user mentions into its true bucket; call out misfilings.
4. Mark UNKNOWN buckets honestly: an unmapped bucket is the map's most important finding, not an embarrassment.

Leak-hunt mode (map exists, performance is the question)

1. Rank the buckets by conversion rate between them and against the bucket's reference range. The leak is the biggest drop, adjusted for how far upstream it sits — early leaks hide downstream damage.
2. Check the sequencing trap: referral and revenue numbers before retention is healthy are noise. A product that leaks retention will leak everything downstream.
3. Name the leakiest bucket and the specific conversion that fails. The verdict is one bucket, not "growth is broken."

Experiment mode (leak named, fix needed)

1. Copy templates/leak-experiment.md and design ONE experiment on the leakiest bucket's conversion.
2. The experiment must move one metric between two named buckets, with a threshold signed before launch.
3. Declare what will NOT be touched: the other four buckets wait their turn.
4. After results: re-rank the buckets. The next experiment targets the new leakiest — even if the last one worked. Chasing the same bucket after it stopped being the leak is how growth teams build one strong wall and no roof.

Hard Rules

• One experiment at a time, on the leakiest bucket only.
• Activation is defined by the retention-jump "aha" action, discovered from cohort data — not by whatever the onboarding flow happens to count.
• Referral metrics are meaningless before retention holds; revenue before activation is a pricing page measuring the wrong thing.
• Every bucket metric is per-cohort or rate-based. Cumulative anywhere is a vanity-metric-audit referral.
• If all five buckets are UNKNOWN, the first experiment is instrumentation — say so.

Output Shape (Leak-hunt mode)

Followed by the leak verdict, the sequencing check, and the one experiment. Keep output in the user's language.