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Agent skill

Ratings Mechanics

by rshankras in rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills

How App Store ratings actually behave — per-storefront isolation (your US stars show nowhere else), the never-reset rule, phased release + manual release as rating protection, and where…

MITAuto-check passedMobile

Install Ratings Mechanics

skills CLI
$ npx skills add rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills --skill ratings-mechanics -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills ratings-mechanics --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/app-store/ratings-mechanics .claude/skills/ratings-mechanics && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
ratings-mechanics
GitHub stars
787
Token cost
~1.4k tokens
SKILL.md length
653 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
41
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

How App Store ratings actually behave — per-storefront isolation (your US stars show nowhere else), the never-reset rule, phased release + manual release as rating protection, and where…

  • Planning ratings strategy for new markets
  • SKILL.md covers When This Skill Activates, Rule 1: Ratings are…, Rule 2: Never reset the… and Rule 3: Phased release +…, plus 3 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md
  • Considering a ratings reset

What it does

Ratings Mechanics is an agent skill from rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills. How App Store ratings actually behave — per-storefront isolation (your US stars show nowhere else), the never-reset rule, phased release + manual release as rating protection, and where prompting/replying fit. Use when planning ratings strategy for new markets, considering a ratings reset, setting release options, or diagnosing "why is my rating missing in country X."

Its SKILL.md is about 1.4k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Mobile, covering App store release. The repository describes itself as: Claude Code skills for Apple platform development (iOS, macOS, iPadOS) — product validation, code generation, App Store optimization, and more. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Planning ratings strategy for new markets
  • Considering a ratings reset
  • Setting release options
  • Diagnosing why is my rating missing in country X

Example prompts

  • “why is my rating missing in country X.”
  • “/ratings-mechanics”

Requirements

  • Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 9ffb831. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

    • Read
    • Write
    • Edit
    • Glob
    • Grep

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

    • developer.apple.com

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Ratings Mechanics loads about 1.4k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 97 tokens; SKILL.md has 653 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~97
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills at commit 9ffb831, republished under its MIT licence (© rshankras). 653 words, ~1,353 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/ratings-mechanics/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
ratings-mechanics
description
How App Store ratings actually behave — per-storefront isolation (your US stars show nowhere else), the never-reset rule, phased release + manual release as rating protection, and where prompting/replying fit. Use when planning ratings strategy for new markets, considering a ratings reset, setting release options, or diagnosing "why is my rating missing in country X."
allowed-tools
Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep
last_verified
2026-07-16
review_by
2027-06-22

Ratings Mechanics

The rating is an asset with mechanics most developers learn the hard way. This skill covers the four rules that aren't obvious from the ASC UI. Prompting code lives in generators/review-prompt; reply writing lives in app-store/review-response-writer — this skill is the strategy layer that tells you when each matters.

When This Skill Activates

  • Localizing or expanding into new storefronts ("why does my app show no rating in Japan?")
  • Considering the "reset ratings summary" option on a version release
  • Choosing release options before submitting (phased vs immediate, auto vs manual)
  • Planning a per-market ratings strategy alongside product/localization-strategy
  • A bad build or review-bomb is threatening the rating

Rule 1: Ratings are per-storefront — they do not travel

Your 4.8★ from 2,000 US ratings renders as no rating at all on the Japanese storefront until Japanese users rate the app there. Every storefront starts from zero.

Consequences:

  • ✅ Entering a new market = re-running the early-days ratings playbook in that market: prompt eagerly (within guidelines), localize the prompt moment, reply to every early review.
  • ✅ Weight requestReview triggers by storefront maturity — a market with 12 ratings needs the prompt more than the home market with 5,000.
  • ❌ Assuming social proof transfers with the binary. A localized listing with zero local ratings converts like an unknown app, because there it is one.
  • The written-review pool is also per-storefront: expect empty review sections in fresh markets and seed them via TestFlight communities or launch outreach in that region.

Rule 2: Never reset the ratings summary

ASC offers a reset when you release a new version. It is almost always a mistake:

  • Reset discards the count as well as the average — 4.2★ from 3,000 ratings converts better than a naked 5.0★ from 6, and the count never comes back except one rating at a time.
  • The instinct to reset ("v2 is a big rewrite, old reviews don't apply") is better served by replying to outdated negative reviews (updated ratings replace the old score — see review-response-writer) and by the What's New copy.
  • ✅ Legitimate near-exception: a catastrophic launch (sub-3★, low count, fixed root cause) on an app with almost no ratings mass. Even then, run the math on count loss first.
  • ❌ Resetting an established app to chase a higher average. You'll rank and convert worse for months.
Show full SKILL.md (278 more words)Show less

Rule 3: Phased release + manual release are rating armor

Two ASC toggles turn a bad build from a rating catastrophe into a contained incident:

  • Manual version release — approval ≠ release. Release when you're awake and watching crash dashboards, not whenever review finishes.
  • Phased release — 7-day staged rollout (1% → 2% → 5% → 10% → 20% → 50% → 100%) to users with automatic updates. A crashing build caught on day 1–2 has burned ~3% of your users; pause the rollout, fix, resubmit. Without it, 100% of users get the bad build and the 1-star flood arrives before the hotfix does.
  • ✅ Default for every release: phased ON + manual release + monitor day-1 crash rate.
  • ❌ Halting a phased release as a rollback. Pausing stops new deliveries only — users who got the build keep it, and manual App Store downloads always get the new version. The armor is damage limitation; the fix still has to ship.

Rule 4: The prompt-and-reply loop is the only rating input you control

  • Prompt at success moments with requestReview — never at launch, never mid-task. Aim the moment, cap the frequency, and localize what "success" means per market. Implementation: generators/review-prompt.
  • Reply to negative reviews — when a user updates their review after a reply, the new score replaces the old one in the average. Replies are the only mechanism that converts existing 1-stars into 4-stars. Templates: app-store/review-response-writer.
  • Per-storefront corollary: track "unanswered negative reviews" per market, not globally — a 5-review storefront is one bad review away from 60% negative.

Output Format

When auditing an app's ratings posture, report per storefront:

Storefront | Rating (count) | Unanswered 1–3★ (90d) | Prompt localized? | Phased+manual habit?

flagging: fresh storefronts with no prompting plan, any reset consideration (🔴 stop), and releases going out unphased.

References

© rshankras, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/app-store/ratings-mechanics of rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 9ffb831

Compare with similar skills

Ratings Mechanics next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Ratings Mechanics compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Ratings Mechanics this skillrshankras/claude-code-apple-skills787—~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Aso Appstore Screenshotsadamlyttleapps/claude-skill-aso-appstore-screenshots1.8k1 repos~9.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
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Maintain Docusaurus Manualmatthiasn/lotti1.2k—~930Automated safety check: PassGPL-3.0
Workbuddy Skin Studiocdredfox/workbuddy-skin-studio197—~1.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
App Store AsoTimBroddin/app-store-aso-skill100—~1.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Categories

Questions about Ratings Mechanics

What does Ratings Mechanics do?

How App Store ratings actually behave — per-storefront isolation (your US stars show nowhere else), the never-reset rule, phased release + manual release as rating protection, and where…. Ratings Mechanics is an agent skill from rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills. How App Store ratings actually behave — per-storefront isolation (your US stars show nowhere else), the never-reset rule, phased release + manual release as rating protection, and where prompting/replying fit.

When should I use Ratings Mechanics?

Ratings Mechanics fits situations like: planning ratings strategy for new markets; considering a ratings reset; setting release options; diagnosing why is my rating missing in country X.

How do I install Ratings Mechanics in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills --skill ratings-mechanics -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/app-store/ratings-mechanics in rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills) into .claude/skills/ratings-mechanics in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Ratings Mechanics in Codex?

Run `npx skills add rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills --skill ratings-mechanics -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/app-store/ratings-mechanics in rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills) into .agents/skills/ratings-mechanics in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Ratings Mechanics in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills --skill ratings-mechanics -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/ratings-mechanics, .gemini/skills/ratings-mechanics, .github/skills/ratings-mechanics and .opencode/skills/ratings-mechanics in your project.

What does Ratings Mechanics need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Ratings Mechanics is instructions for the agent only. Its frontmatter pre-approves these tools: Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep.

Does Ratings Mechanics access the network?

SKILL.md names 1 domain. As links in the text: developer.apple.com. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Ratings Mechanics safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Ratings Mechanics use?

Ratings Mechanics is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Ratings Mechanics use?

About 1.4k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.4k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Ratings Mechanics?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Ratings Mechanics: Aso Appstore Screenshots (adamlyttleapps/claude-skill-aso-appstore-screenshots, 1.8k stars), Asc Ppp Pricing (rorkai/app-store-connect-cli-skills, 1.1k stars), Maintain Docusaurus Manual (matthiasn/lotti, 1.2k stars) and Workbuddy Skin Studio (cdredfox/workbuddy-skin-studio, 197 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Ratings Mechanics?

rshankras (a GitHub user) maintains it in rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills, which has 787 GitHub stars. The repository holds 41 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on July 24, 2026.

Source: rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.