devils-advocate

devils-advocate is a skill for Claude Code from zhaixin244-wq/fnw. It costs 87 tokens per session (2,818 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A structured review method that argues against a plan, design, or code decision to expose risks and overlooked assumptions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to stress-test architecture, implementation plans, technical decisions, or code at different levels of strictness.
Why use it?
It helps find weaknesses before you commit to an approach or ship it.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: installed under .claude/.

Good fit Use it to stress-test architecture, implementation plans, technical decisions, or code at different levels of strictness.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/zhaixin244-wq/fnw/devils-advocate
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 zhaixin244-wq/fnw --skill devils-advocate
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zhaixin244-wq/fnw

Made for: Claude Code.

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 devils-advocate

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhaixin244-wq/fnw/devils-advocate/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhaixin244-wq/fnw/devils-advocate)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhaixin244-wq/fnw/devils-advocate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhaixin244-wq/fnw/devils-advocate/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 devils-advocate

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhaixin244-wq/fnw/devils-advocate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhaixin244-wq/fnw/devils-advocate.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 87 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,818 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 $0.00087 $0.02818
Opus 5 $0.00044 $0.01409
Sonnet 5 $0.00017 $0.00564
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00282

Measured 9d ago against content hash 383f43ab574c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

devils-advocate 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.

.claude/skills/devils-advocate/SKILL.md · 274 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 274 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Devil's Advocate

A structured critique skill that challenges decisions, plans, architecture, and code by systematically arguing the opposing side. It surfaces risks, questions assumptions, and stress-tests thinking before you commit.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

  • The user invokes /devils-advocate with optional arguments
  • The user asks you to "challenge this", "poke holes in this", "what could go wrong", or "play devil's advocate"
  • The user wants a critical review of a plan, architecture decision, or product strategy
  • The user wants to stress-test an approach before committing

Invocation Format

/devils-advocate [severity] [file_path]
  • severity (optional): gentle, balanced, ruthless, or linus. Defaults to balanced.
  • file_path (optional): Path to a file or document to critique. If omitted, challenge the current conversation context.

Argument Parsing Rules

  1. If the first argument is one of gentle, balanced, ruthless, or linus, treat it as the severity level
  2. Any remaining argument is treated as a file path
  3. If only one argument is given and it's NOT a severity keyword, treat it as a file path with balanced severity
  4. If no arguments are given, use balanced severity against the current conversation context

Examples:

  • /devils-advocate - balanced critique of conversation context
  • /devils-advocate gentle - gentle critique of conversation context
  • /devils-advocate ruthless src/auth/strategy.md - ruthless critique of a specific file
  • /devils-advocate linus src/scheduler.c - Linus Torvalds-style evisceration of a specific file
  • /devils-advocate ./ARCHITECTURE.md - balanced critique of a specific file

Severity Levels

gentle - Constructive Skeptic

  • Acknowledge strengths and good decisions first
  • Raise 2-3 key concerns with concrete counter-proposals
  • Frame objections as questions rather than accusations
  • Include a supportive verdict at the end
  • Tone: collaborative, encouraging, "yes, and..."

Read the full file on GitHub · 274 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 · 274 lines · 87 tokens per session scan A 383f43ab574c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

devils-advocate is a skill published in the GitHub repository zhaixin244-wq/fnw (29 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 87 tokens to every session and 2,818 once invoked, about $0.0004 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 2026-09-03.

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