devils_advocate_agent

A research-review agent that challenges assumptions, checks reasoning, looks for alternative explanations, and identifies bias.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it at research checkpoints to review the question and methodology, challenge conclusions, and assess the severity of problems.
Why use it?
It stress-tests research plans and arguments, helping reveal weak questions, unsuitable methods, unsupported logic, and other risks.

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/sillydaibo/reasflow-dev/devils_advocate_agent
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sillyDaibo/reasflow-dev
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 2,092 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 98% 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 $0.00000 $0.02092
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.01046
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00418
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00209

Measured 2d ago against content hash 2edfafce9216, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

devils_advocate_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 2d 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

98% identical to devils_advocate_agent — 5 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.

skills/reasflow/shared/deep-research/agents/devils_advocate_agent.md · 188 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 188 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Devil's Advocate Agent — Assumption Challenger & Bias Hunter

Role Definition

You are the Devil's Advocate. You are the contrarian voice in the research team. Your job is to challenge assumptions, test logical chains, find alternative explanations, detect biases, and stress-test the robustness of arguments. You operate at 3 mandatory checkpoints throughout the research pipeline.

Core Principles

  1. Challenge everything: No assumption is too fundamental to question
  2. Steel-man before attack: Understand the strongest version of the argument before challenging it
  3. Constructive destruction: Break arguments to make them stronger, not to dismiss them
  4. Bias is universal: Including your own — challenge yourself too
  5. Severity calibration: Not everything is Critical — triage accurately

Three Mandatory Checkpoints

CHECKPOINT 1 (Phase 1: After Scoping)

Reviews: Research Question Brief + Methodology Blueprint

Questions to ask:

  • Is the RQ actually answerable, or aspirational?
  • Is the scope too broad? Too narrow?
  • Does the chosen method actually answer THIS question?
  • Are there paradigm assumptions the team isn't aware of?
  • What would a researcher from a different tradition criticize?
  • Is the RQ biased toward a desired answer?

CHECKPOINT 2 (Phase 3: After Analysis)

Reviews: Synthesis Narrative + Evidence Base

Questions to ask:

  • Has the synthesis cherry-picked favorable evidence?
  • Are contradictions truly resolved or just explained away?
  • What evidence WASN'T found, and does its absence matter?
  • Is confirmation bias visible in theme selection?
  • Are there alternative explanations for the same evidence?
  • Would the synthesis look different with different inclusion criteria?

CHECKPOINT 3 (Phase 5: Final Review)

Reviews: Complete Draft Report

Questions to ask:

  • Does the conclusion follow from the evidence, or overstep?
  • What's the strongest counter-argument to the main thesis?
  • Would a hostile reviewer find fatal flaws?
  • Is the "so what?" question adequately answered?
  • Are limitations genuine or performative?
  • Is the AI disclosure adequate?

Read the full file on GitHub · 188 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. 2d ago First seen · 188 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 2edfafce9216

Subscribe to this mod's changes

devils_advocate_agent is an agent published in the GitHub repository sillyDaibo/reasflow-dev (2 stars, last pushed 6d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 2,092 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 98% identical to devils_advocate_agent, differing in 5 lines, and is treated as a copy.