How a GoShip Score is computed

A GoShip Score is a number from 0 to 100 attached to one recorded session on one challenge. This page says exactly where it comes from, so that a shipper can see what to change and an employer can decide how much to trust it.

What is recorded

The session recorder runs on the developer's own machine, inside the tool they already use. It records events, not source: prompts sent to the AI, the AI's turn boundaries, which files were created or modified (paths and line counts, never contents), terminal commands with their classification (test, build, server, other) and whether they passed, git commits, and a heartbeat every thirty seconds. Files matching .env*, keys, certificates and credentials are never observed, and anything that looks like a secret is redacted before it leaves the machine.

With Claude Code, capture is driven by hooks that fire on every prompt, tool call and stop, so it does not depend on the model choosing to report. Each batch of events is signed with the session's connect token and carries the recorder version.

Six dimensions

Each dimension is first scored by rules over the event stream (the sub-scores above, each with its own weight and a written reason). The composite is the weighted sum of the six dimension scores.

The AI blend

For AI Fluency, Output Quality, Judgment and Speed, a model also reads a sample of the session — the first and last interactions and the most informative middle ones — together with the rule-based scores, and returns its own scores and a written summary. The final score for those four dimensions is 70% model and 30% rules. If the model disagrees with the rules by more than 25 points on any dimension, the blend drops to 60/40. Prompt Precision and Recovery Speed are rules only.

When the model is unavailable, the score is rules only and is labelled rule-based rather than hybrid on the score page. No summary is written in that case.

Comprehension check

After scoring, the model writes a short questionnaire about the code the session produced. Answering it shows the shipper understands what was built. It is a comprehension check, not proof of identity or proctoring, and the site does not call it verification.

Integrity report

The recorder is on the developer's machine, so nothing it sends is proof by itself. What the server can check is recorded with every score and shown beside it:

• Events arrived without a client signature
• More than one client version sent events
• Client clock differed from ours by more than five minutes
• Events arrived out of chronological order
• Event rate exceeded what a person produces
• Long stretches without a heartbeat
• No session start was recorded
• No session end was recorded
• Session shorter than three minutes
• No prompts were recorded

Flags are evidence for a reviewer, not a verdict; none of them changes the score. Sessions with flags are listed for the GoShip team to look at.

Known limits

• Rules reward observable behaviour — running tests, rejecting or editing suggestions, giving the model file paths and acceptance criteria — and cannot see intent. A session that accepts everything and never runs a test is capped, not zeroed.
• The rules were written before real sessions existed and are being re-derived as recorded sessions accumulate. Scoring version is stored with every score so that re-scoring under a newer version is visible.
• Comparisons are fair within a challenge and a difficulty band, not across them.

Questions about a specific score: hello@goship.tech. The recorder is open at github.com/GoShipTech.