# Human Calibration > Use when a build, design, or consequential UX decision starts and you must first meet the human it serves. Loads or builds a session profile of how this human thinks, decides, and wants to be spoken to, then steers the whole build through it. Trigger words: yoke, know your human, human profile, session profile, grounding ladder, interaction model, intent. - Skill: `tcuzzo/human-calibration` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tcuzzo/human-calibration` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tcuzzo/human-calibration/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - License: MIT - Author: Tcuzzo (https://skillmd.com/u/tcuzzo) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tcuzzo/human-calibration --- # Know Your Human **Effort:** light — one profile pass: load the saved profile, or build it from at most 7 casual questions. Removes: re-interrogating a human who already answered, and rework from builds that misread their taste. A build that misreads its human is wrong before the first line is written. This skill replaces guessing with a working model of the human it serves: thinking pattern, taste, register, and where their word is trusted outright. Meet the human where they are — never make them rise to the system's level. ## When to run At the start of any build, design, uplift, or consequential UX decision. Not chat decoration. ## The flow: profile or interrogate 1. **Identify the human.** Check `.agent/profiles/.md` in the project, then the agent's home config dir (e.g. `~/.claude/profiles/.md`) for an all-projects profile. If a validated profile exists there, load it and apply it. Never re-interrogate a human who already has one. 2. **No profile? Run the question protocol** (below). Up to 7 casual questions, plus at most 3 follow-ups where an answer opens a thread. Always optional — a human who shrugs one off gets profiled from observed behavior instead. Never a gate on the work. 3. **Synthesize a session profile** (template below). Every field carries a `source` and a `status`. A section with no evidence stays empty: empty is honest, guessed is a hidden inference. 4. **Reconcile the goal.** Restate the build's intent through the profile, in the human's own register — one plain paragraph, not a spec. They confirm or correct. Their correction is final. 5. **Reprompt yourself.** Before executing, rewrite your working prompt through the profile: what they meant, which statements to trust, which need one subtle check, what will feel alive to them and what will feel disrespectful. 6. **Build with the profile as the guiding hand** — design, engineering, UX, and taste decisions all steer through it. 7. **Learn.** Observed choices, rejections, and corrections update the profile — saved back to `.agent/profiles/.md` (or the home config dir for an all-projects profile). Correction wins, instantly. ## The grounding ladder (priority order, absolute) ``` HUMAN CORRECTION > OBSERVED REPEATED BEHAVIOR > DECLARED ARCHETYPE (what they say they are) > CULTURAL PATTERN (what that declared archetype typically implies) > MODEL GUESS ``` No lower rung ever overrides a higher one. Archetypes and cultural patterns are steering context, never a box — observed behavior and correction outrank them. ## The question protocol Design rules: no degree needed to answer. Casual true/false and either/or. One at a time, sprinkled through the goal conversation — never fired as a list, never scored, never repeated. Capture the human's own phrasing; it matters as much as the answer. The 7 core questions (each reads two or more axes at once): 1. New gadget: read how it works first, or just start pressing buttons? → processing style, risk comfort. 2. True/false: ugly bugs you more than slow. → taste priority (aesthetic vs mechanical). 3. Late friend: quick text, or a call with the whole story? → register (compressed vs narrative). 4. Building a treehouse: picture the finished thing, or the first board? → whole-picture vs step thinking. 5. True/false: rules that make no sense should still be followed. → frame acceptance vs challenge. 6. Three good options, or one strong recommendation you can veto? → authority preference — directly sets how you present decisions. 7. Their work gets criticized: defend, fix, or ask what they'd do instead? → correction style — sets how you deliver hard findings. Follow-ups (max 3, only where a core answer opens a thread): gut trusted everywhere or only where they're great (trust map); "good enough is good enough?" (shipping bias); change-it-later freedom vs works-today certainty (reversibility taste); still theirs after someone else edits it (ownership); "what do people get wrong about how you work?" (identity anchor, their words). ## The trust rule The profile maps where this human's judgment is strong and where it is weak. - **Strong area + confident statement → trust it.** No re-deriving, no second-guessing, no explaining basics back to them. - **Weak area + vague statement → one subtle check.** Ask one casual question that resolves the ambiguity, or offer your interpretation for a one-word confirm. Never challenge them to their face; never silently substitute your own plan. - **Never use the profile to cap what the human may attempt.** It tunes HOW you listen, never WHETHER you obey. ## Session profile template (compact) ```markdown # SESSION PROFILE — ## Identity anchors # value + source (declared|observed|cultural|guess) + status (confirmed|working|needs-validation|rejected) ## Working pattern # one paragraph: how the anchors combine for THIS human ## Steering traits # "likely to: " → "so I: " ## Trust map # strong areas (trust outright) / weak areas (one subtle check) ## Core tension # both/and needs that look contradictory but are requirements ## Misalignment risk # the most likely misread, stated as a prohibition ## Ledger # date, ladder rung, change, evidence ``` A session profile is session-scoped: in a new session it is data, not truth, until the human re-confirms it or behavior re-earns it. The profile is the human's property: show it on request, correct it the moment they say it is wrong, and never act on an inference they cannot see — that is a hidden gate. ## Hard rules (any one of these fails the skill) - Re-interrogating a human who already has a validated profile. - Making the questions feel like a test, or making them mandatory. - A guessed field dressed as a confirmed one. - A lower ladder rung overriding a higher one. - Using the profile to limit what the human is allowed to attempt. - Lowering the goal because one route is incomplete. Separate: intended capability → current boundary → route available now → route needed later. ## Works well with - [human-voice](../human-voice/SKILL.md) — the register to answer in once the profile says how they listen. - [decision-bar](../decision-bar/SKILL.md) — which decisions reach the human at all; the profile shapes how they arrive. - [intent-compiler](../intent-compiler/SKILL.md) — the human's prompt is the spec; the profile tells you what they meant. - [model-fusion](../model-fusion/SKILL.md) — panel-then-compress synthesis of the profile.