vibe-anti-rationalization-check

vibe-anti-rationalization-check is a skill for Claude Code from ash1794/vibe-engineering. It costs 47 tokens per session (604 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A review helper that looks for excuses to skip requested development steps, such as testing, error handling, or edge-case work. It flags attempts to quietly reduce the scope or loosen a constraint.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it while implementing software when you are considering skipping tests, simplifying a requirement, postponing work, or removing error handling. It does not apply when the user explicitly asks for the shortcut.
Why use it?
It helps prevent small shortcuts from becoming bugs, missing requirements, or unfinished work.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: user-invocable in frontmatter.

Part of the vibe-engineering plugin — 38 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it while implementing software when you are considering skipping tests, simplifying a requirement, postponing work, or removing error handling. It does not apply when the user explicitly asks for the shortcut.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/ash1794/vibe-engineering/anti-rationalization-check
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.

Any agent
npx skills add ash1794/vibe-engineering --skill anti-rationalization-check
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ash1794/vibe-engineering

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install vibe-engineering, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 38 skills.

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 vibe-anti-rationalization-check

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ash1794/vibe-engineering/anti-rationalization-check/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ash1794/vibe-engineering/anti-rationalization-check)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ash1794/vibe-engineering/anti-rationalization-check"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ash1794/vibe-engineering/anti-rationalization-check/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 vibe-anti-rationalization-check

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ash1794/vibe-engineering/anti-rationalization-check"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ash1794/vibe-engineering/anti-rationalization-check.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 47 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 604 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 $0.00047 $0.00604
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.00302
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00121
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00060

Measured 9d ago against content hash 448e7cf88c0e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

vibe-anti-rationalization-check 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 9d 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

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

plugins/vibe-engineering/skills/anti-rationalization-check/SKILL.md · 62 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 62 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

vibe-anti-rationalization-check

LLMs systematically rationalize shortcuts. This skill catches it happening.

When to Use This Skill

  • You catch yourself thinking "this is simple enough to skip testing"
  • You're about to reduce scope without the user asking
  • You notice you're explaining why something "doesn't really need" to be done
  • A constraint feels "too strict" and you want to relax it
  • You're about to say "in the interest of time..."

When NOT to Use This Skill

  • The user explicitly asked to skip something
  • You're genuinely unsure if something is needed (ask the user instead)
  • The simplification is the user's explicit request

Known Rationalization Patterns

Watch for these thoughts — they're red flags:

Rationalization Reality
"This is too simple to need tests" Simple code in complex systems causes the hardest bugs
"The user probably doesn't care about this edge case" Production users will find every edge case
"We don't need error handling here" Internal code fails too, especially during refactors
"I'll add that later" "Later" never comes. Do it now or create a tracked task
"This is just boilerplate" Boilerplate often contains critical correctness constraints
"The happy path is enough for now" The sad path is where real users spend most of their time
"It works, so it must be correct" "Works" and "correct" are different things
"This test is redundant" Redundant tests catch redundant bugs
"Let me simplify this requirement" Simplifying without asking = silently dropping scope
"This doesn't need documentation" If you thought about it for >2 minutes, document why

Steps

When you detect a rationalization:

  1. Name it — "I notice I'm rationalizing skipping [X]"
  2. State the constraint — "The requirement says [specific requirement]"
  3. Evaluate honestly — Is there a legitimate reason to skip this, or is it laziness?
  4. Choose:
    • If legitimate: Ask the user "Should we skip X because Y?"
    • If rationalization: Do the work. Don't mention the temptation.
  5. If you skipped something without asking: Go back and do it

Read the full file on GitHub · 62 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. 9d ago First seen · 62 lines · 47 tokens per session scan A 448e7cf88c0e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

vibe-anti-rationalization-check is a skill published in the GitHub repository ash1794/vibe-engineering (10 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 47 tokens to every session and 604 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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