Set up
Try a plugin
The Human Resources plugin ships with /performance-review as a starting point, already structured to gather a report's work for the period and draft the review against your framework. If your admin manages plugins and it's not available yet, skip this; nothing below requires it.
Connect your tools
Claude Cowork is more powerful when it works directly with your systems. You control permissions and access. Learn about tool access(opens in new tab).
Navigate to Customize → Connectors in Cowork to set up.
Set your working folder
Drag the files you'll use (your career framework, the review template, last cycle's reviews, your team roster) into one folder and point Cowork at it. Cowork reads the framework from there and writes one draft per report back to it. Create a Cowork project(opens in new tab) from that folder so your framework and your writing voice stay attached.
The prompt
Copy this into Claude Cowork
I'm writing quarterly reviews for my reports. For each engineer in my team list, draft the review in our framework with evidence linked for every claim, drawing on their work this quarter and their last review's growth areas. Flag where I need to add my own judgment; do not write the rating.
Why this works
Require evidence for every claim. The draft is defensible in calibration; nothing rests on vibes.
Include prior context to show progress. The review tracks progress, not just a snapshot of this quarter.
Keep judgment calls yours. Saying the rating is yours to make tells Claude where its job ends. The draft gathers and organizes the evidence, then stops.
Give it your review framework. Every draft maps to your levels and your competencies, not a generic ladder.
Get a better draft
Add an example to match. Drop an example you like into the folder and Cowork matches your structure and voice.
Ask it to flag uncertainty. Add "flag anything you're not confident about" so you know where to look first when you review the draft.
Make Cowork work for you
A plugin skill is a starting point — customize it with your own practices and expertise. A few minutes of conversation and it runs with your standards from then on.
Make what we've done in this task so far into a skill, or edit the /performance-review skill with my feedback.
Make it repeatable
Run it at the start of every cycle
The evidence packet should be ready before review season opens. Type /schedule or open Scheduled in the Cowork sidebar, and the customized skill builds the drafts as soon as the quarter folder appears.
/schedule Every Monday at 9am, if a new quarter folder exists under Reviews, run /performance-review for everyone in team-roster.md and write each draft to Reviews/<quarter>/<name>.md.
When a new quarter folder appears, runs /performance-review for each report against GitHub, Linear, and Slack and writes evidence-linked drafts to the cycle folder.
Share with your teammates
Your customized /performance-review now carries your career framework, your evidence sources, and your tone. Share it so every manager in the org drafts against the same ladder, and calibration compares apples to apples.