# Reference report format

This is the literal output template the skill writes. Every report follows this shape so downstream consumers (hiring manager, recruiting coordinator, audit reviewer) read predictable structure.

## Template

```markdown
# Reference report — {Candidate name} — {Role title}

Generated: {ISO timestamp} · Rubric SHA: {short hash} · Skill version: 1.0

{CONSENT WARNING HEADER — present only if any reference has missing consent — see consent-checklist.md}

## References

| ID | Name | Role | Relationship to candidate | Call date | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | Jamie Liu | VP Eng, Acme Fintech | Direct manager (2y) | 2026-04-28 | 45m |
| R2 | Sam Park | Senior IC peer, Acme Fintech | Cross-team collaborator (1y) | 2026-04-30 | 30m |

## Per-dimension synthesis

### Skill match — production Go and distributed-systems experience

**Confidence: high**

| Reference | Strength | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | strong-positive | "Owned the entire payments routing rewrite in Go — moved from synchronous to event-driven, took our P99 from 800ms to 180ms over Q3." |
| R2 | strong-positive | "When we needed someone to actually understand the consensus layer in our state machine, Jamie was the only person who could explain why the failover semantics were broken." |

### Level fit — Senior IC scope, cross-team influence

**Confidence: medium**

| Reference | Strength | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | strong-positive | "Was effectively the tech lead on the routing team — running the design reviews, mentoring two juniors." |
| R2 | weak-positive | "Came over to our team for the integration work — drove the meetings but it was a smaller scope, just three of us." |

*Note: confidence is medium because R2's scope was a single integration; R1's scope was a multi-quarter team-leadership signal. The strong-positive on team-lead scope only comes from R1.*

### Team collaboration — handles disagreement well

**Confidence: low**

| Reference | Strength | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | strong-positive | "Pushed back on a design I'd already approved, with data — turned out he was right and we caught a P0 before it shipped." |
| R2 | weak-negative | "Sometimes the pushback comes across as harsh in the moment — I had to mediate once between Jamie and one of our front-end folks." |

**⚠️ Contradiction surfaced.** R1 and R2 diverge by 2 levels on this dimension. R1's framing is that the pushback is principled and outcome-positive; R2's framing is that the delivery has interpersonal cost. Recruiter to surface this in the hiring-manager debrief.

### Ownership signal — sees work through to outcome

**Confidence: high**

| Reference | Strength | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | strong-positive | "Stayed on the routing project through the post-launch operational phase — wasn't the kind of engineer who hands off after launch." |
| R2 | strong-positive | "When the integration work hit a snag with our auth team, Jamie went and unblocked it himself rather than escalating." |

## Coverage gaps

Dimensions the references did not address (no verbatim quote found):

- **Response to ambiguity** — neither reference described a situation where the candidate had to act under unclear requirements. Recruiter to ask R3, or rely on the structured-interview step that probes this.
- **Customer-facing scope** — no quotes on the candidate's interaction with customers or with non-technical stakeholders. If the role requires customer-facing work, this gap matters.

## Provenance

- Rubric: `data/rubrics/senior-backend-engineer.json` — SHA `a3f2b1c4d5e6f7a8`
- Notes: `data/references/jamie-liu/` — 2 references processed
- Consent log: `data/references/jamie-liu/consent.json`
- Generated by: `reference-check-summary` skill v1.0 on Claude Sonnet 4.6
- Generated at: 2026-05-03T14:00:00Z
```

## Notes on the template

- **No overall hire/no-hire recommendation.** The report ends after the last per-dimension table and the coverage-gaps section. The decision sits with the hiring manager.
- **Dimension order matches the rubric.** The skill does NOT reorder by reference enthusiasm or by confidence band. The rubric's ordering reflects the team's prioritization; the report respects that.
- **Quotes are verbatim.** No paraphrasing, no smoothing. If a reference said "kinda harsh" the report says "kinda harsh," not "somewhat harsh."
- **Contradictions surface inline.** A separate "contradictions" section at the end is harder to read than inline notes per dimension.