bounty claim gate

Most bounty work that never pays was predictable at the time of the claim. This skill provides a rigorous pre-flight checklist for developers and agents to evaluate bounties, grants, or paid tasks before investing any effort. It filters out listings where rewards aren't escrowed, payout rails are inaccessible, or acceptance criteria are too subjective to be reliable.

What it does

• Verify Escrow checks for on-chain funds or platform-held rewards to ensure the money exists.
• Audit Payout Rails confirms the specific payment method, chain, or processor actually reaches your region and wallet.
• Analyze Criteria identifies subjective "lottery" traps versus objective, testable requirements like merged PRs or passing tests.
• Check Poster History searches for verifiable payout records and transaction hashes instead of platform marketing badges.
• Calculate Expected Value models win probability against competition volume and potential duplicate-work traps.

How it works

1. Input Bounty Data by providing the listing URL, description, and reward details.
2. Execute Gate Sequence by running the six gates in order, starting with the cheapest checks like escrow and rails.
3. Identify Red Flags like missing escrow, new posters, or move-able acceptance criteria.
4. Review Gate Report to see a pass/fail status for each gate with specific evidence.

Frameworks & tools

This skill is platform-agnostic and works with Gitcoin, Bountycaster, Replit Bounties, GitHub Issues, and various grant programs. It utilizes block explorers for escrow verification and processor availability documentation for rail checks.

Why this beats prompting it yourself

Generic prompts often overlook the "payout rail" trap where you do the work but cannot legally receive the funds. This skill enforces a "cheapest-check-first" logic that kills bad leads in seconds before you waste time analyzing complex technical requirements.

Use cases

• Evaluating a new bounty to decide if the reward justifies the timebox.
• Comparing multiple listings to rank them by expected value per hour.
• Diagnosing payment failures to see if a reward is still recoverable.
• Setting effort caps to define the exact point where you abandon a task.

Known limitations

Cannot guarantee payment if a platform experiences a technical outage or if off-chain escrow is fraudulent. win probability estimates are based on visible competition and historical data.