Johari Window · IN SHORT
Organise your self-description and feedback you actually received for one relationship or team. The Johari Window makes sources and missing information visible so you can ask more specific questions.
Your brief
I send a summary after every meeting. This team has not given me feedback yet. I want to know whether the messages are useful.
Possible draft
Record the summaries as self-description without inventing the team’s view. After the next meeting, ask which decision was clear and what information was missing. Add the actual answers only when received.
01 / THE FOUNDATION
Four source-labelled windows, three feedback questions and a next step with a review point.
02 / SEE HOW IT WORKS
I send a summary after every meeting. This team has not given me feedback yet. I want to know whether the messages are useful.
Record the summaries as self-description without inventing the team’s view. After the next meeting, ask which decision was clear and what information was missing. Add the actual answers only when received.
This example shows the approach. It is not a client result or a guarantee of a particular outcome.
03 / GET STARTED
Work with one relationship and describe actions rather than character traits.
Mark self-description, received feedback and assumptions. Without feedback, leave the blind spot empty.
Ask about actual situations and decide when to compare the answers.
04 / MAKE IT YOURS
Take the instructions, add your own context and review the draft. You stay in control.
Full informationDownload. Apply. Refine.
File language: English
Explore the details at your own pace.
You describe your own behaviour, you paste in the feedback you have actually received, and you get the four windows back with the source next to every line. What you said yourself is marked self, what somebody else said is marked heard with a name and a moment, and what the skill infers itself is marked assumption. If you have not supplied any feedback, the Blind Spot stays empty and you get the questions to fill it yourself instead. No score, no type, no guess about what others think of you.
the lines above come from the zip on this page · SKILL.md is 14,577 bytes
This is the worked example from the SKILL.md itself, shown here in shortened form. Notice what does not happen: no second remark gets invented to fill the Blind Spot, and no judgement appears about what kind of person you are. One colleague who said something stays one colleague who said something.
The AI Johari Window is a free skill from our skill library, which now counts 100 skills. A skill is an instruction file, SKILL.md, that gives an AI assistant a fixed way of working for one task.
No software to install, no subscription, no login: one text file of 2,446 words that tells Claude how to fill the four windows of the Johari Window, which source belongs with each line, what it needs to know before it starts, and what it must never do under any circumstances. You download the zip at the top of this page, drop it into your Claude environment, and from that moment Claude works according to this structure. What a skill actually is and how that file format works, you can read in what Claude skills are NL.
The problem the skill solves shows up in almost every filled in Johari Window you come across online. Somebody fills in four boxes with words like committed, perfectionist and sometimes too direct, and afterwards nobody can say where those words came from. Did a colleague say that, is it a self-image, or did the person filling it in make it up because the box would otherwise stay empty. This goes wrong especially with the Blind Spot, because that is by definition the window you cannot see yourself. Anyone who fills it in anyway is inventing how others see them. The skill inverts that: every line gets a marker, and without feedback from somebody else that window simply stays empty.
That also contains the second fixed choice in the file: one window per relationship. The model is not a photo of you as a person but of one specific relationship. That is why the skill starts by asking which relationship or group you are filling it in for, and the file gives a reason for that which needs no explanation: your manager sees something different than your brother in law. Fill it in without context, and according to the skill the result is a horoscope.
It is useful for anyone with something concrete ahead of them. A feedback conversation or performance review you want to prepare for. A new team where you still have to find out how you come across. A 360 degree round where the separate answers now sit in a document without anyone seeing a pattern in them. Or a collaboration that runs stiffly while nobody can name exactly why. It belongs to the skill library we make available for free through the service AI and automation, without an account and without a sales email afterwards.
One thing is stated immediately in the file, and we take that over here literally: this is not a psychological assessment, not a personality test and not a performance appraisal. In cases of mental health problems, trauma, bullying, harassment or a workplace conflict, the skill stops, names what it sees and refers you to a confidential adviser, mediator, GP or occupational health physician. That is not a small print line at the back, it stands at the front among the cases in which the skill must not start.
There is also a separate assessment function built in, for existing windows and for feedback rounds, and its checkpoints read like a list of what goes wrong in practice. They are recognisable one by one, and they explain why an exercise that looks so simple on paper so often delivers nothing.
Lines appear with no source. According to the file, this is the biggest problem in almost every filled in window. A line with no origin cannot be checked, cannot be asked about and cannot be refuted. It stands there as fact while nobody knows who wrote it down. The skill solves that with three markers, further down in FIG.03, and with one hard rule: lines without a source do not exist.
Labels appear instead of behaviour. Dominant, chaotic, committed, driven: those are judgements about a person, not descriptions of something that happened. You cannot do anything with them, because you do not know which moment is meant. That is why it asks about your self-image in behaviour, and in the example converts analytical into something checkable: in meetings you ask for figures first before forming an opinion. If somebody did literally say such a label, it comes between quotation marks with the source next to it, exactly as it was said.
One remark becomes a pattern. Somebody hears once that they talk too fast and writes in the window that they talk too fast. The file counts differently: once is a signal, not a pattern. When ordering a feedback round the skill therefore notes, per point, how many people mentioned it, and sets points that only come up once to one side.
The window becomes a score. People want to know how big their Open Arena is, preferably in percentages. That is not possible, because the model has no unit of measurement. It therefore refuses percentages, just as it refuses window ratios in numbers and typings, and it is not allowed to claim that the Johari Window is a validated measuring instrument either. It is a conversation model from 1955.
No action comes out of it. Four filled boxes and then nothing. For each window it therefore gives one action that fits the movement of that window, it closes with three feedback questions you can ask tomorrow, and a next step comes with a date plus a moment to look back. Without that block, the report is not finished according to the skill.
In diff form, with the difference the assessment function flags in almost every window it is given: what goes out and what comes back in its place.
The model sets two axes against each other: what you know about yourself versus what you do not know about yourself, and what others know about you versus what others do not know about you. That produces four windows. The mono line under each area says what the skill does in that area, and which area it deliberately leaves empty. At the bottom are the two movements that shift the lines, because that is the only purpose of the model.
A skill is only as good as its instructions, so we simply describe them here. The file opens with a frontmatter that states when Claude should pick the skill up.
Not just on the obvious terms such as johari window, blind spots, self-insight or preparing a feedback conversation, but also on sentences people actually use: I never get honest feedback, I think I am being clear but nobody else thinks so, my manager says something different from my colleagues, new team how should I position myself, everyone thinks I am strict and I do not see it myself, I keep too much to myself, I do not dare ask what they think of me. Anyone who says something like that to Claude while the skill is loaded gets it automatically. The same frontmatter also lists the cases in which the skill should specifically not start, and below that is the licence: MIT, version 1.0.0.
After that comes the core: seven fixed actions. First it asks which relationship or group the window is being filled in for. It asks about the self-image in behaviour and not in traits. It asks for the feedback received as literally as possible, including who said it and when, and marks paraphrases as paraphrase. In every window it separates three kinds of lines and marks them. It leaves the Blind Spot empty if no feedback from others has been supplied, and delivers questions instead. For each window it gives one action that fits the movement of that window. And it closes with three feedback questions you can ask tomorrow, a next step with a date, and a moment to look back.
Before the windows are filled in, the skill runs through a mandatory input checklist of six points: which relationship or group the window applies to, the self-description in behaviour, the feedback that actually exists with its source, what you deliberately do not share and why not, the trigger, and how much room there is in this context to share. That last point is sharper than it looks, because the file adds a sentence rarely seen in this kind of model: not every workplace is a safe place. If something that is not crucial is missing, the skill carries on and makes its assumption visible in the report.
The output has a fixed structure of six blocks. First a frame of two or three lines: which relationship the window applies to, what the trigger is, which sources were used and how many people gave feedback, because one opinion is one opinion.
Then the four windows in fixed order, each with short lines and a source marker. Then two or three sentences about the relationship between the windows, in descriptive language, with no diagnosis or advice about who you should be. Then three feedback questions, concrete and answerable, aimed at behaviour in a situation: not how do I come across, but what did I do on Monday in the meeting that made you stop talking. Then the next step. And finally a block that never lapses: the limit of this report, which states what could not be filled in and why.
A separate chapter deals with language. Clear British English, with the reader addressed as you throughout. No dashes in running text. Short sentences alternate with long ones. Describe behaviour, not character: you interrupt is allowed, you are dominant is not, unless somebody literally said it that way. And no therapist language or jargon without explanation, because words such as mirroring, projection and congruent mean nothing to most people. That is exactly why the output does not sound like an assessment report.
There is also a second mode built in. Hand it a filled in Johari Window, a feedback round or a collection of loose remarks, and the skill assesses it on five points: the source separation per line, behaviour versus label with a rewrite attached, the source count per point from the Blind Spot, the action focus per window, and finally a rewritten version with eight to twelve replacement feedback questions. If you want to learn to set up this kind of instruction file yourself, the method is in writing a SKILL.md NL.
This is the part that sets this skill apart from an ordinary fill in exercise. The output has three markers, self, heard and assumption, and they are not there for decoration: they determine what you are allowed to do with a line. Below that are the two cases that are not markers but do determine what goes into the window: what stays empty, and how the skill counts. What you see below is the example from the skill, split out by origin.
The Johari Window was created in 1955 by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, and presented at the Western Training Laboratory in Group Development in Los Angeles. The name is a contraction of their first names, Joe and Harry. Luft later worked the model out in Group Processes: An Introduction to Group Dynamics from 1963 and in Of Human Interaction from 1969. The file says no more than that about it, and that is deliberate: a lot gets embellished online about where this model comes from, and the skill sticks to what can be checked.
The ladder of inference explains why feedback so often lands as an attack. The thinking model by Chris Argyris, made more widely known through The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge from 1990, describes how a judgement grows out of one observation in a few steps. Somebody sees you cut a conversation short, infers from that that you have no interest, and ends up saying you are dominant. The observation and the judgement are then already four rungs apart. Anyone who knows that asks different feedback questions: not how do I come across, but what exactly did I do at that moment. The same way of thinking is in the Ladder of Inference Coach skill.
Radical Candor is about the quality of the feedback you gather. Kim Scott's book from 2017 is in the source list because the Johari Window only helps you further if the feedback you get is honest and specific. If you only get pleasantries back, your Blind Spot stays exactly as big as before. The Radical Candor Coach skill NL takes on that side of it.
Nonviolent Communication supplies the phrasing. Marshall Rosenberg described in 1999 how you name behaviour without sticking a label on it. That exact writing rule is what the skill imposes on itself: you interrupt is allowed, you are dominant is not. For conversations where that distinction makes the difference, there is a separate Nonviolent Communication Coach skill.
A 360 degree round is the organisational form of the same idea. Multiple sources that together make the Blind Spot visible. The skill can order that kind of round, but it does not replace it: it sorts the answers by behaviour, counts the mentions and sets the one off points aside.
And then the three warnings the file itself gives about using the model, because they go against its own product. The window is not a personality test and delivers no score. The window cannot be established once and for all, because it looks different per relationship and per context. And a large Hidden Area is not automatically wrong, because not everything belongs at work. Even without installing the skill, those three rules alone let you set up your own feedback round better: ask about behaviour in a situation, note who said what, and count before you draw conclusions.
The SKILL.md contains a list of nine things the skill never does, and for a model about self-image and feedback that list is at least as important as what it does do. A wrongly filled in window spreads, after all: it travels into a conversation, it gets quoted, and nobody remembers where it came from any more. Those rules play out like this: each line is a request you might make, with the response the skill gives according to its own instructions.
The zip contains one folder, ai-johari-window, with the SKILL.md inside it. Installing is a matter of putting the file in the right place, and that place differs per environment. SKILL.md has been an open standard since December 2025, so the same skill also works in Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI. So you are not downloading a Claude file but a working instruction that any modern AI assistant can read.
~/.claude/skills/ (or .claude/skills/ in your project)./ai-johari-window.AGENTS.md in your repo.AGENTS.md.After that, using it is simple: say which relationship or group the window applies to and what the trigger is, paste in your self-description and the feedback you have, as literally as possible and with the source attached. Whatever is missing, it asks about itself, one thing at a time. If you only have a stack of loose answers from a feedback round, just paste them in as they are: the second mode sorts them for you. If you get stuck anywhere installing it, the full step by step plan per environment is in installing Claude skills NL, and the broader explanation of working with AI is in the knowledge base.
This skill is at its strongest when there is a concrete trigger and there is feedback you want to do something with. On top of that there are a few variants in which the approach shifts.
Always fill in one window per relationship, so separately for your team, your manager and your clients, because those windows really differ. For a team as a whole there is a team version: what does the team know about itself and what do outsiders see that the team does not, where you explicitly ask for sources outside the team. For a 360 degree round you use it to order loose answers, sort them by behaviour and count them. And without anyone giving feedback you only get the questions, which according to the skill is not half a result but the real work.
For a performance review or appraisal a separate rule applies: use the window as preparation, not as a report. A judgement from your employer does not belong in a self-insight model. That distinction is easy to forget if both conversations fall in the same week, and it is exactly the point where this model goes wrong in organisations.
There are also situations where you are better off leaving it alone, and the file is brief about that. Not as a substitute for a psychological assessment, a personality test or a performance appraisal. Not for mental health problems, trauma or conflicts that call for a confidential adviser, mediator or occupational health physician. And not to map out somebody else who is not taking part in the conversation.
One more honest limit: the skill does not gather feedback. It orders what exists and formulates the questions with which you can gather the rest, but asking those questions remains human work, and the answer only comes once the other person feels safe enough to give it. If you then want to have a conversation about what you do with that feedback, the GROW Coach connects to that with four phases and an appointment with a date. If the underlying question is more about direction than self-image, the Ikigai Coach is more logical, and if it is about how a team develops, the Tuckman Team Stages Coach fits better.
This skill is the free do it yourself version of work we also deliver as a service. This one stays complete and without catches, but understand what a skill is: it teaches your AI how to do something, while every new session starts empty. It is not the engine and it is not the memory. You prompt, you supply your previous windows and last month's answers again every time, you check. Anyone who wants that differently has two next steps: hand over the engine, or sort out the memory.
Step 3 deserves more than a paragraph, because this is the difference between a clever chat and a system you can build on. Jarvis is the organisation brain: it remembers what your AIs need to know, divides the work and keeps track of what happened. With feedback that stands out even more, because feedback with no history is just a loose remark. Who said what last quarter, and whether it was already said back then too, is exactly the kind of knowledge that evaporates in a chat window. You notice it first at the start of a new session.
We have been running on this system ourselves for months. Every agent session, every task and every decision is logged in it and can be read back. A new session therefore does not start blank: it first fetches the recorded decisions, the running projects and the latest changes, and carries on where the previous one stopped. So we are not describing a promise but the way we work every day.
See the four plans at jarvis/prijzen NL. Through the waiting list NL you only pass on your preferred plan, without any obligation. That does not yet create an account, an order or a payment obligation. We discuss bespoke business arrangements first.
The Johari Window orders what has been said about you. These skills from the same library take on the pieces around it: gathering better feedback, the conversation afterwards, and the picture in which you place yourself.
Your window is only as good as the feedback you get. These three are about the quality of that.
Radical Candor CoachIn this skill's own source list: giving honest feedback without losing the relationship.SKILL NL Nonviolent Communication CoachRosenberg's phrasing: naming behaviour without sticking a label on it.SKILL Ladder of Inference CoachShows how a judgement grows out of one observation, and why feedback then lands as an attack.SKILLA window is a starting point. These skills structure what you do with the outcome.
GROW CoachFour phases towards an appointment with a date, when the feedback calls for a change.SKILL STAR Method CoachStructures looking back on a concrete situation, exactly the level at which feedback becomes usable.SKILL NL Tuckman Team Stages CoachFor the team version of the window: which stage the group you are asking this in is in.SKILLSometimes the question is not about how you come across, but about where you want to go.
Ikigai CoachLooks for the direction underneath the self-image: what you can do, what you want and what somebody pays for.SKILL PERMA Model CoachLooks at wellbeing instead of performance, when the conversation is actually about that.SKILL Maslow Pyramid CoachLooks at which need lies underneath the behaviour others notice in you.SKILLNew to skills? These three explain the file format, from understanding to writing your own.
What are Claude skillsThe file format, the open standard and what a skill can and cannot do.DOC NL Installing Claude skillsThe full step by step plan per environment, from Claude Code to Gemini CLI.DOC NL Writing a SKILL.mdBuild a skill yourself following the same method as this library.DOC NL The whole skill libraryAll 100 free skills in one place, sorted by topic.HUBNothing. The skill is free, the file itself states the MIT licence, and you do not have to create an account or leave an email address. You download a 5.8 KB zip containing one folder and a single file, SKILL.md, and that is the complete skill. There is no paid version and no sales email follows.
Yes. SKILL.md has been an open standard since December 2025, so the same file also works in Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and other tools that follow the standard. In Codex you unzip it into .agents/skills/ in your project, or into ~/.agents/skills/ for all your projects; Codex has supported SKILL.md directly since the open standard of December 2025. Pasting the contents of SKILL.md into your AGENTS.md still works too. The instructions are just plain readable text, so any AI assistant that accepts instruction files can handle it.
You then get three of the four windows. The Blind Spot deliberately stays empty, because that window only exists if somebody else has said something about you. Filling in a guess would be a fabrication about how others see you, and that is on the file's list of things the skill never does. Instead of filling it in, it delivers questions with which you can fill that window yourself, and according to the skill those questions are the real work.
Because a window without sources cannot be checked. The skill marks every line with self for what you said yourself, with heard plus the source for what somebody else said, and with assumption for what the skill infers itself. Lines without a source do not exist in the output. When assessing a filled in window, the file calls that missing source separation the biggest problem in almost every window people supply.
No, and the skill explicitly refuses that too. The Johari Window has no unit of measurement, so no percentages, no window ratios in numbers and no typing come out of it. The file also forbids the skill to claim that the window is a validated measuring instrument. It is a conversation model from 1955, not a test, and the result is a set of questions plus a step, not a score.
Yes, that is one of the variants the file names. You supply the loose answers and the skill sorts them by behaviour, counts how often something recurs and from how many sources, and sets points that were only mentioned once to one side. Once is a signal, not a pattern. So what you get is not a summarised judgement but an ordered overview in which you see for yourself where the sources meet.
Not as a substitute for a psychological assessment, a personality test or a performance appraisal. And not for mental health problems, trauma or conflicts that call for a confidential adviser, mediator or occupational health physician. In cases of signs of distress, bullying, harassment or a workplace conflict, the skill stops and names what it sees. Filling in a window about a colleague who is not taking part in the conversation is also out: the model is for self-insight, not for a file on somebody else.
A filled in window is only worth something once you use it afterwards to ask a question of somebody who can answer that question honestly. That is the hardest step, and there is no tool that does it for you.
What is possible is ordering the round around it: setting the question up, bundling the answers and not letting the look back moment slip. Do that for a whole team, and that is work an AI employee is for. If you want your people to have this kind of conversation better themselves, with or without AI alongside them, that is the AI training.
