advisor-skeptic

advisor-skeptic is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from backchainai/backchain-plugins. It costs 50 tokens per session (1,168 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A skeptical review method for testing ideas, strategies, and plans. It examines evidence, assumptions, failure risks, and the difference between measured facts and speculation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to red-team a plan, challenge an idea, play devil’s advocate, or perform a reality check before committing to a decision.
Why use it?
It helps expose weak reasoning and hidden risks before a decision is made. Claims are checked against the strength of the evidence supporting them.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the advisors plugin — 5 skills shipped together

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 skills/backchainai/backchain-plugins/advisor-skeptic
Any agent
npx skills add backchainai/backchain-plugins --skill advisor-skeptic
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/backchainai/backchain-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install advisors, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 5 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 advisor-skeptic

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/backchainai/backchain-plugins/advisor-skeptic.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/backchainai/backchain-plugins/advisor-skeptic)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/backchainai/backchain-plugins/advisor-skeptic"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/backchainai/backchain-plugins/advisor-skeptic.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 50 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,168 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00050 $0.01168
Opus 5 $0.00025 $0.00584
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00234
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00117

Measured 4d ago against content hash ee32443b2dfc, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

advisor-skeptic 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.

advisors/skills/advisor-skeptic/SKILL.md · 179 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 179 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Skeptical Analysis

Core Role

Operate from evidence-based skepticism. Assume nothing. Trust only data. Every claim requires proof. Every projection needs error bars. Success stories hide failures. Question everything, especially unanimous agreement.

Adapt your frameworks to the scale and nature of the decision. Not all decisions involve products, markets, or venture capital. Apply only the frameworks that are relevant to the specific input.

Input

Decision/Idea to Analyze: $ARGUMENTS

Analysis Framework

1. Evidence Hierarchy

Rank all claims by evidence quality:

Tier 1: Reproducible Data

  • Peer-reviewed studies with n>1000
  • Audited financial statements
  • Government statistics
  • A/B test results with p<0.01

Tier 2: Direct Observation

  • Internal metrics with clear methodology
  • Expert testimony with track record
  • Case studies with documented process
  • Market research with disclosed methods

Tier 3: Inference

  • Analogies to similar situations
  • Theoretical models
  • Expert opinions without data
  • Competitor claims

Tier 4: Speculation

  • Vision statements
  • Market projections beyond 3 years
  • Disruption predictions
  • Paradigm shift claims

2. Failure Mode Analysis

For every proposed strategy, identify:

First-Order Failures

  • Direct cause → effect
  • Probability calculation
  • Historical base rate
  • Mitigation cost

Second-Order Failures

  • Cascade effects
  • System interactions
  • Feedback loops
  • Unintended consequences

Third-Order Failures

  • Market response
  • Regulatory reaction
  • Competitive dynamics
  • Cultural backlash

Use formula: Risk = Probability × Impact × (1 - Detection Rate)

3. Assumption Mapping

Expose hidden assumptions:

  1. Stated Assumptions - What they admit assuming
  2. Implicit Assumptions - What they don't realize assuming
  3. Structural Assumptions - What the model requires
  4. Environmental Assumptions - What must remain stable
  5. Behavioral Assumptions - How humans must act

Read the full file on GitHub · 179 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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 · 179 lines · 50 tokens per session scan A ee32443b2dfc

Subscribe to this mod's changes

advisor-skeptic is a skill published in the GitHub repository backchainai/backchain-plugins (4 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 50 tokens to every session and 1,168 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 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

kayba-stage-5-action-plan

Triage each insight into discard/code-fix/prompt-fix and produce a prioritized action plan with specific recommendations. Trigger when the user says "run stage 5", "make action plan", "triage skills", or when invoked by the kayba-pipeline orchestrator. Requires eval outputs from stages 1-4.

kayba-ai/agentic-context-engine · 74 tokens

kayba-stage-7-fixer

Implement the approved fixes from the action plan and log all changes. Trigger when the user says "run stage 7", "implement fixes", "apply action plan", or when invoked by the kayba-pipeline orchestrator. Requires eval/actionplan.md to exist.

kayba-ai/agentic-context-engine · 61 tokens

memory-recall

Search and recall relevant memories from past sessions via memsearch. Use when the user's question could benefit from historical context, past decisions, debugging notes, previous conversations, or project knowledge -- especially questions like 'what did I decide about X', 'why did we do Y', or 'have I seen this…

zilliztech/memsearch · 149 tokens

mnemon

Persistent memory CLI for LLM agents. Store facts, recall past knowledge, link related memories, manage lifecycle.

mnemon-dev/mnemon · 25 tokens

mnemon

Persistent memory for MiniMax Code. Recall durable context, store important facts and decisions, and link related memories with the mnemon CLI.

mnemon-dev/mnemon · 30 tokens

architecture-refiner

Facilitate a structured conversation to define architecture principles for a repository. Supports multiple architecture styles: clean architecture (default), hexagonal / ports & adapters, modular monolith, or custom. Produces a formal architecture document that the corresponding atom will use. Use when setting up a…

techygarg/lattice · 114 tokens