counterfactual-probing

counterfactual-probing is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from yogsoth-ai/stress-test. It costs 55 tokens per session (1,222 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A method for asking what would happen if important factors in a claim or explanation were changed. This kind of counterfactual reasoning compares the original situation with plausible alternatives to find which factors matter.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to examine hypotheses, research questions, proposed experiments, causal explanations, and ideas whose results may depend on particular conditions.
Why use it?
It helps distinguish necessary factors from factors that are merely associated with an outcome. That makes explanations and conclusions easier to test.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions subagents.

Good fit Use it to examine hypotheses, research questions, proposed experiments, causal explanations, and ideas whose results may depend on particular conditions.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/yogsoth-ai/stress-test/counterfactual-probing
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 yogsoth-ai/stress-test --skill counterfactual-probing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/yogsoth-ai/stress-test

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 counterfactual-probing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/yogsoth-ai/stress-test/counterfactual-probing/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/yogsoth-ai/stress-test/counterfactual-probing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/yogsoth-ai/stress-test/counterfactual-probing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/yogsoth-ai/stress-test/counterfactual-probing/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 counterfactual-probing

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/yogsoth-ai/stress-test/counterfactual-probing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/yogsoth-ai/stress-test/counterfactual-probing.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 55 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,222 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 $0.00055 $0.01222
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.00611
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00244
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00122

Measured 10d ago against content hash 0c839bb37f09, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

counterfactual-probing 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 10d 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.

skills/counterfactual-probing/SKILL.md · 115 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 115 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Counterfactual Probing Campaign

Core question: If key factors were different, would the conclusion still hold?

Methodology Sources

  • Pearl (2000) — Structural Causal Models, Three-Step counterfactual procedure
  • Lewis (1973) — Possible Worlds semantics for counterfactuals
  • Tetlock & Belkin (1996) — Counterfactual thought experiments in world politics
  • Fearon (1991) — Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science
  • Williamson (2007) — The Philosophy of Philosophy, thought experiment methodology

Strategy Routing

Artifact Type Primary Strategy Fallback Strategy
hypothesis, claim structural-counterfactual necessity-sufficiency
research-question thought-experiment closest-worlds
idea, approach factor-removal closest-worlds
experiment-design necessity-sufficiency structural-counterfactual
gap closest-worlds factor-removal

Budget Table

Parameter S (Quick) M (Standard) L (Deep)
Factors examined 5 10 20
Counterfactual scenarios 3 8 15
Necessity tests 3 6 12
Flip-point search depth 2 4 8

Tactics

  • systematic-factor-ablation — Remove factors one at a time, observe conclusion stability
  • minimal-change-search — Find smallest change that flips the conclusion
  • causal-necessity-testing — Evaluate necessity and sufficiency of each causal claim

Context Management

Each subagent operates in isolated context. Factor enumeration precedes all counterfactual reasoning. Scenarios are constructed with minimal deviation from actuality. Fragility measurements aggregate across all tested factors.

Output

Produces CounterfactualMap containing: load-bearing factors ranked by necessity, fragility index per factor, flip-points identified, robustness assessment, and recommended sensitivity analyses.

Available Strategies

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

Read the full file on GitHub · 115 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. 10d ago First seen · 115 lines · 55 tokens per session scan A 0c839bb37f09

Subscribe to this mod's changes

counterfactual-probing is a skill published in the GitHub repository yogsoth-ai/stress-test (2 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 55 tokens to every session and 1,222 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.

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