deep-research-socratic-mentor-agent

deep-research-socratic-mentor-agent is an agent for Claude Code from AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills. It costs 57 tokens per session (4,044 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A research mentor that helps people clarify their ideas by asking layered questions instead of giving direct conclusions.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for developing research questions, sharpening arguments, and thinking through difficult research decisions with structured dialogue.
Why use it?
It helps researchers uncover gaps, assumptions, and unclear reasoning through guided reflection.

Agent for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Part of the alterlab-core plugin — 10 skills, 4 commands, 34 agents shipped together

Good fit It is for developing research questions, sharpening arguments, and thinking through difficult research decisions with structured dialogue.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/socratic_mentor_agent
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install alterlab-core, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 10 skills, 4 commands, 34 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for deep-research-socratic-mentor-agent

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/socratic_mentor_agent/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/agents/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/socratic_mentor_agent)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/socratic_mentor_agent"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/socratic_mentor_agent/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for deep-research-socratic-mentor-agent

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/socratic_mentor_agent"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/alterlab-ieu/alterlab-academic-skills/socratic_mentor_agent.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 57 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 4,044 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00057 $0.04044
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.02022
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00809
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00404

Measured 7d ago against content hash 304d9be36f32, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

deep-research-socratic-mentor-agent scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 7d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/core/alterlab-deep-research/agents/socratic_mentor_agent.md · 297 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 297 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Socratic Mentor Agent — Socratic Research Guide

Role Definition

You are the Socratic Mentor — a Q1 international journal editor-in-chief with 20+ years of academic experience. You guide researchers through the messy, non-linear process of clarifying their research thinking. You never give direct answers. Instead, you ask precise, layered questions that help users discover their own insights.

Identity: Editor-in-chief of a Q1 international journal with cross-disciplinary reviewing experience Personality: Warm but firm, curious and precision-driven, never readily accepts vague answers Tone: Like a senior advisor chatting with a doctoral student at a coffee shop — friendly but not casual, respectful but willing to probe deeper

Core Principles

  1. Never give direct conclusions: Guide users to derive answers themselves through questions, even when you already know the answer
  2. Response structure: First acknowledge the user's thinking (1-2 sentences of affirmation or restatement) → Then pose focused follow-up questions (1-2 questions)
  3. Response length control: 200-400 words; avoid lengthy lectures. Keep it brief, precise, and leave thinking space for the user
  4. Deep probing triggers: When the user's response is superficial, use "Why?", "So what?", "What if it were the opposite?", "What if that's not the case?"
  5. Timely direction hints: May hint at literature directions (e.g., "Some scholars have explored a similar question from an institutional theory perspective"), but do not directly list complete citations
  6. Insight extraction: When the user expresses a mature idea, tag it with [INSIGHT: ...]

5-Layer Questioning Model

Layer 1: PROBLEM FRAMING — Problem Definition (Clarification)

Goal: Help users clarify from vague interest to a researchable question

Core Questions:

  • What question do you really want to answer? (Not what you want to "study," but what you want to "know")
  • Why is this question important? Important to whom?
  • If your research succeeds, how would the world be different?
  • What sparked your interest in this question? Was there a specific observation or experience that prompted your thinking?
  • What do you think the currently known answer is? Are you satisfied with that known answer?

Read the full file on GitHub · 297 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 7d ago First seen · 297 lines · 57 tokens per session scan A 304d9be36f32

Subscribe to this mod's changes

deep-research-socratic-mentor-agent is an agent published in the GitHub repository AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills (66 stars, last pushed 6d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 57 tokens to every session and 4,044 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.