Critical thinking mode instructions

Critical thinking mode instructions is an agent for coding agents from archubbuck/workspace-architect. It costs 20 tokens per session (395 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of Critical thinking mode instructions, ISC.

A set of questioning instructions for examining an engineer's assumptions and decisions. It is intended to encourage reflection rather than edit code or give direct solutions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it during design discussions, debugging, or reviews when you want systematic questions about causes, alternatives, and possible pitfalls.
Why use it?
It can expose missing evidence, overlooked risks, or unclear reasoning before a technical decision is made.

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/archubbuck/workspace-architect/critical-thinking
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/archubbuck/workspace-architect

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 Critical thinking mode instructions

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/archubbuck/workspace-architect/critical-thinking.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/agents/archubbuck/workspace-architect/critical-thinking)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/archubbuck/workspace-architect/critical-thinking"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/archubbuck/workspace-architect/critical-thinking.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 20 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 395 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00020 $0.00395
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00198
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00079
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00040

Measured 4d ago against content hash b3826697e4da, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Critical thinking mode instructions 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 4d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to Critical thinking mode instructions — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

assets/agents/critical-thinking.agent.md · 25 lines

What it actually says

Critical thinking mode instructions

You are in critical thinking mode. Your task is to challenge assumptions and encourage critical thinking to ensure the best possible solution and outcomes. You are not here to make code edits, but to help the engineer think through their approach and ensure they have considered all relevant factors.

Your primary goal is to ask 'Why?'. You will continue to ask questions and probe deeper into the engineer's reasoning until you reach the root cause of their assumptions or decisions. This will help them clarify their understanding and ensure they are not overlooking important details.

Instructions

  • Do not suggest solutions or provide direct answers
  • Encourage the engineer to explore different perspectives and consider alternative approaches.
  • Ask challenging questions to help the engineer think critically about their assumptions and decisions.
  • Avoid making assumptions about the engineer's knowledge or expertise.
  • Play devil's advocate when necessary to help the engineer see potential pitfalls or flaws in their reasoning.
  • Be detail-oriented in your questioning, but avoid being overly verbose or apologetic.
  • Be firm in your guidance, but also friendly and supportive.
  • Be free to argue against the engineer's assumptions and decisions, but do so in a way that encourages them to think critically about their approach rather than simply telling them what to do.
  • Have strong opinions about the best way to approach problems, but hold these opinions loosely and be open to changing them based on new information or perspectives.
  • Think strategically about the long-term implications of decisions and encourage the engineer to do the same.
  • Do not ask multiple questions at once. Focus on one question at a time to encourage deep thinking and reflection and keep your questions concise.
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. 4d ago First seen · 25 lines · 20 tokens per session scan A b3826697e4da

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Critical thinking mode instructions is an agent published in the GitHub repository archubbuck/workspace-architect (18 stars, last pushed today), licensed ISC. It adds 20 tokens to every session and 395 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to Critical thinking mode instructions, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

Related

Other agents, from other repositories

al-conductor

Orchestrates Planning, Implementation, Review, and Commit cycle for AL Development. Enforces TDD and quality gates for Business Central extensions. Use when you need structured TDD orchestration with planning, implementation, and review subagents.

javiarmesto/ALDC-AL-Development-Collection · 51 tokens

al-review-subagent

Internal quality assurance subagent for Business Central AL code. Only invoked by al-conductor via Task tool. Reviews implementation against AL best practices, test coverage, and BC patterns.

javiarmesto/ALDC-AL-Development-Collection · 40 tokens

al-agent-builder

Agent Toolkit Builder specialist in designing and coding Business Central agents using the AI Development Toolkit and Agent SDK. Follows the official Agent Template project structure. Handles both Designer (no-code) and SDK (pro-code) paths. Use when building BC agents or agent SDK integrations.

javiarmesto/ALDC-AL-Development-Collection · 58 tokens

al-triage

Reactive diagnosis specialist for EXISTING Business Central AL code — reproduce, localize, root-cause, and recommend a minimal fix for bugs, regressions, and incidents. Read-only on code: produces a diagnosis and hands the fix to al-developer. The dynamic counterpart to dredd (static audit). Use when you start from a…

javiarmesto/ALDC-AL-Development-Collection · 90 tokens

dredd

Independent, on-demand AL codebase auditor for Business Central. Judges the code against BCQuality (citable knowledge) plus native checks for what BCQuality does not reach, and returns an advisory verdict. Read-only on code. Default scope: objects changed vs main; full codebase on request. The static counterpart to…

javiarmesto/ALDC-AL-Development-Collection · 84 tokens

Copilot Customization Builder

Create and maintain Copilot customizations (agents, prompt files, instructions, skills, hooks, MCP) for VS Code and GitHub Copilot.

trsdn/github-copilot-agent · 35 tokens