Purpose
Turn a raw case description into a fast, consistent triage verdict — urgency level, risk category, recommended owner, SLA target, and the single best next action — so specialists can prioritize a queue without re-litigating severity for every ticket. Solves the problem of inconsistent, gut-feel triage that lets high-risk cases sit while low-stakes tickets get worked first.
When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Triage or prioritize an incoming support ticket, dispute, or abuse report
- Decide how urgent a case is or how fast it needs a response
- Determine which team or role should own a specific case
- Score a queue of cases so they can be sorted by risk
- Classify a trust & safety report (fraud, harassment, policy violation, safety threat)
- Figure out the right next action for a case that isn't obvious
Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- Case description: The ticket, report, or complaint text — verbatim if possible
- Case source: Buyer, seller, third party, automated flag, or internal
- Platform type: Marketplace, social platform, gig/service platform, or other
- Money involved: Whether funds, payouts, or transactions are at stake (and rough amount if known)
- User signals: Any known account history — prior violations, verified status, account age
- Available owners/teams: The roles or queues cases can be routed to (e.g., Tier 1 Support, Payments, T&S, Legal, Engineering)
If available owners aren't specified, default to a standard set: Tier 1 Support, Tier 2 Support, Payments/Disputes, Trust & Safety, Legal/Escalations. If source or user signals are missing, note the assumption and score on the description alone.
Instructions
Step 1: Detect Risk Category
Classify the case into its primary risk category. If multiple apply, pick the highest-severity one as primary and list secondaries.
- Safety/Harm — physical threat, self-harm, minor safety, violence, real-world danger. Always highest severity.
- Fraud/Financial — scams, chargebacks, unauthorized transactions, payout manipulation, fake listings
- Abuse/Harassment — targeted harassment, hate speech, threats, doxxing between users
- Policy Violation — prohibited items, TOS breaches, spam, fake reviews, off-platform circumvention
- Account Integrity — account takeover (ATO), impersonation, credential compromise, bot activity
- Transaction Dispute — item-not-received, item-not-as-described, refund conflicts, delivery issues
- Service/Product Issue — bugs, feature confusion, billing questions, how-to requests (lowest risk)
Step 2: Score Urgency
Assign one urgency level using these criteria. Time-sensitivity and irreversibility push urgency up.
- P0 — Critical (respond immediately, < 1 hour): Active safety threat, self-harm indicators, live fraud draining funds, ongoing ATO, legal/regulatory exposure, PR-level risk
- P1 — High (respond < 4 hours): Financial loss preventable if acted on now, harassment in progress, pending payout to a flagged account, repeat offender with escalating behavior
- P2 — Medium (respond < 24 hours): Standard disputes with money at stake, single policy violations, first-time abuse reports, account issues not actively exploited
- P3 — Low (respond < 72 hours): How-to questions, cosmetic issues, low-value disputes, informational requests, resolved-but-logged incidents
Escalation multipliers — bump urgency up one level if any apply:
- Repeat offender or prior violation on file
- Money at stake above your high-value threshold (default: unusual for the platform)
- Public-facing or media-visible
- Time-boxed (funds release, deadline, or shipment window closing)
- Vulnerable party involved
Step 3: Recommend Owner
Route to the correct owner based on risk category and complexity:
- Safety/Harm, Legal exposure → Trust & Safety, escalate to Legal/Escalations
- Fraud/Financial, chargebacks, payouts → Payments/Disputes (T&S if coordinated abuse)
- Abuse/Harassment, Account Integrity → Trust & Safety
- Transaction Dispute → Tier 1 if straightforward; Tier 2/Payments if funds held or contested
- Service/Product Issue → Tier 1 Support; Engineering only if reproducible bug
Name a primary owner and, for P0/P1 cases, a secondary/notify party.
Step 4: Suggest Next Action
Give one concrete, specific first action — not a category. Examples of the right specificity:
- "Freeze the pending $840 payout on seller account, then request ID re-verification before release"
- "Restrict messaging between the two accounts and preserve the message thread for review"
- "Request order photos and tracking from the seller; hold refund decision until received"
- "Reply with the password-reset flow; no escalation needed"
Include, where relevant: what to preserve/evidence, what to freeze/hold, what to ask the user, and whether to auto-respond or escalate first.
Step 5: Assemble the Verdict Card
Compile the triage into a single scannable verdict with a one-line rationale explaining why this urgency and category — tying it to the specific signals in the case.
Output Format
- Structure: A single "Triage Verdict Card" for the case, followed by a short rationale block
- Length: 150–300 words per case (concise — this is a queue tool, not an essay)
- Format: Labeled field block (Urgency / Risk Category / Owner / SLA / Next Action) plus a one-paragraph rationale
- Sections: Verdict Card → Rationale → (if applicable) Secondary risks & escalation triggers noted
- Tone: Decisive triage-desk voice — a verdict, not a discussion. Commit to a level; don't hedge with "could be P1 or P2."
Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Exactly one primary urgency level assigned (P0–P3) — no ranges
- [ ] Exactly one primary risk category assigned; secondaries listed separately if present
- [ ] An SLA target time is stated and matches the assigned urgency level
- [ ] The recommended owner exists in the provided/default owner list
- [ ] The next action is a specific, executable step — not a category label like "investigate"
- [ ] The rationale references at least one concrete signal from the case description
Notes
- When in doubt between two urgency levels, score up — the cost of over-triaging a case is small; the cost of under-triaging a P0 is not.
- Safety/Harm always overrides money. A $2 case with a credible threat outranks a $5,000 routine dispute.
- For batch triage, run the same five steps per case and output the verdict cards in a table sorted by urgency (P0 first) so the queue is workable at a glance.
- Escalation multipliers are the most common source of triage errors — always check them before finalizing, especially repeat-offender status and time-boxed windows.
How to use this skill
This file is a Claude Code skill in Anthropic's standard format — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.
Installing in Claude Code:
~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)
Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.
Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:
- Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
- Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits
For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills