Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall/main/.github/instructions/critical-thinking.instructions.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_MallWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/critical-thinking)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/critical-thinking"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/critical-thinking/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/critical-thinking"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/critical-thinking.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00547 | $0.00547 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00273 | $0.00273 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00109 | $0.00109 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00055 | $0.00055 |
Grade A, and why
Alex_Skill_Mall critical-thinking.instructions.md 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 8d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 37 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Critical Thinking
Challenge what you think is right through structured skepticism.
Core Protocol
- Alternative hypotheses (Two-Hypothesis Floor) — For every conclusion at medium or high activation, generate at least one competing explanation and explicitly state both before committing to either. The visible marker is a one-line stub at the start of the response:
Considered: A vs B — going with A because <specific reason>.Both alternatives must cite a specific reason ("because" or "given") — performative alternatives without reasons fail the rule (Wason 1960; Nickerson 1998; Heuer 1999). - User-framing audit — Is the user's framing the right one, or have I anchored on it because they stated it confidently? User confidence ("clearly", "obviously", "just do X") is a sycophancy trigger, not evidence. Challenge before accepting.
- Missing data — What evidence would you need to be more confident? What's absent?
- Evidence quality — Is the source reliable? Is the sample size adequate? Is it reproducible?
- Bias detection — Check for confirmation bias, survivorship bias, anchoring, availability heuristic
- Falsifiability — What would prove this wrong? If nothing could, the claim is unfalsifiable
- Adversarial review — Argue the opposite position. If you can't steelman the counter-argument, you don't understand the problem
Frame audit comes first. Before this protocol fires, run the Discipline -1 frame audit per
.github/instructions/problem-framing-audit.instructions.mdon any non-trivial request. Solving the wrong problem precisely is the most expensive class of error.
When to Apply
- Before committing to a technical approach
- When reviewing proposals or architecture decisions
- When evidence "feels" right but hasn't been verified
- When consensus forms too quickly (groupthink signal)
Skill Reference
Full framework in .github/skills/critical-thinking/SKILL.md.
Would Revise If
Revise if the 7-step protocol consistently produces no behavior change at decision points where it should (theater not discipline), if the Two-Hypothesis Floor degrades to performative alternatives without "because" reasons, or if the falsifiability requirement on conclusions reduces to boilerplate "would revise if evidence emerges" with no specific evidence named.
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.
- 8d ago First seen · 37 lines · 547 tokens per session scan A 2370b2ae7c9f
Alex_Skill_Mall critical-thinking.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall (4 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 547 tokens to every session, about $0.0027 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 2026-08-31.
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