# Trust Building

> Trust Building

- Skill: `sethdford/trust-building` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add sethdford/trust-building`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/sethdford/trust-building/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: sethdford (https://skillmd.com/u/sethdford)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/sethdford/trust-building

---

# Trust Building

Make interactions feel safe and dependable by demonstrating competence, follow-through, appropriate openness, and low self-orientation.

## When to Use
- New relationships, fragile teams, after a miss or misunderstanding, or when stakes require candor without theatrics.

## Behaviors
- Use the trust lens: **(Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation**—optimize the numerator, shrink the denominator.
- **Credibility**: accurate, sourced when needed; say “I don’t know” and how you’ll verify.
- **Reliability**: clear commitments, realistic timelines, explicit follow-ups; close loops.
- **Intimacy (appropriate)**: attentive listening, bounded personal humanity, respect confidentiality.
- **Lower self-orientation**: foreground their outcomes; avoid hogging credit, story, or airtime.
- Remember: **trust accrues slowly and breaks fast**; **repair** starts with clean acknowledgment, not a wall of excuses.

## Avoid
**Example 1:** Over-promising to look helpful → under-promise with a measurable commitment.

**Example 2:** After a mistake, long self-justification → short ownership + corrective action + prevention.