Devils advocate
Challenge research design decisions, assumptions, and methodology choices with specific critical questions. Helps strengthen the paper before submission.From its SKILL.md
npx -y skills add brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill devils-advocateAssembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.
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SKILL.md
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Devil's Advocate
Critically examine a research design, methodology, or assumption with 5-7 specific challenges.
Steps
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Understand the target: Read
$ARGUMENTSand any relevant project files (CLAUDE.md, manuscript, estimation code). -
Generate 5-7 challenges from these categories:
- Identification: Could the causal claim be undermined by [specific threat]?
- Specification: What if the functional form is wrong? Alternative specifications?
- Data: Are there sample selection issues? Measurement error concerns?
- Methodology: Could a different estimator give different results? Why this method?
- Assumptions: Which assumptions are most vulnerable? What if they're violated?
- Robustness: What robustness checks are missing?
- External validity: Does this generalize beyond the sample?
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For each challenge, provide:
- The question
- Why it matters
- Suggested resolution or robustness check
- Severity (Critical / Major / Minor)
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Summary verdict: Strengths, critical changes needed, and suggested improvements.
Notes
- Be constructive, not destructive.
- Think like a skeptical referee at a top journal.
- Focus on the most impactful challenges first.
What ships with it
Read from the repository
Just SKILL.md. No reference files, no scripts.