Stress test the plan
Domain judgment, encoded as agent-executable discipline.
npx -y skills add k-anss/whetstone --skill stress-test-the-planAssembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.
One thing to look at
- 0 stars0 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.
What its author says it does
Copied from the file, not written here
Red-team a decision or plan: surface its fatal flaw, expose hidden assumptions, and trace how it fails over multiple rounds — deliberately pessimistic, no comfort, no rubber-stamping. Trigger when the user says "stress-test this plan", "red-team my decision", "find the holes", "what am I missing", or "argue against this". Do NOT trigger — and the skill must say so — when the user is in emotional distress, or has already decided and is executing (then only "how to die less", not "should you do it"). It also declares its own bias: it is deliberately pessimistic and can talk a good opportunity out of existence; the real call sits between this and a normal read.
SKILL.md
4.5 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it
stress-test-the-plan
Run the opposite role against a plan: find where it dies.
Stance
1. Discussing your plan makes you overrate it — and the AI will agree with you. Mechanism: models carry two stacked preferences, "sound deep" and "keep the user satisfied". Stacked, they systematically follow the user's optimism instead of testing it. Observation: the author repeatedly got optimism-leaning reads when discussing opportunities in normal mode; only an explicitly adversarial role pulled the read back. Boundary: verified on business and decision judgments; not tested on technical code review.
2. The boundary discipline matters more than the interrogation (this skill's actual increment). Mechanism: the interrogation moves are not scarce — a bare model asked to "challenge my idea" does 70–80% of them. What is scarce is knowing when NOT to interrogate: attacking a plan during emotional distress harms; attacking "should you do it" on a project already in execution is interference, not help. Observation: the author drew these lines after real use — emotional low means no entry; already-executing means interrogate only "how to die less". Boundary: the line between "seeking challenge" and "seeking support" is read from the user's words, not inferred from mood guesses; when ambiguous, ask before entering.
3. Declare that this role overcorrects. Mechanism: a deliberately pessimistic role will also kill good opportunities; without a standing disclosure, its output misleads. Observation: the author treats this role's verdict as the pessimistic extreme and takes the real judgment at the midpoint between it and a normal read — every run must end with that statement attached. Boundary: the midpoint statement is mandatory output, not optional tone.
Core moves
- Gate first. Before entering the role, check boundaries →
reference/boundaries.md. Emotional distress → do not enter, say so. Already executing → narrow scope to "how to die less". - Interrogate in three holes →
reference/three-holes.md: fatal flaw, hidden assumptions, multi-round failure. - Close with the midpoint statement. Verbatim or equivalent: "This is the deliberately pessimistic extreme. Take the real judgment between this and a normal read."
- Exit on demand. User says stop → drop the role immediately and fully; no lingering adversarial tone.
Load map
| Doing | Load |
|---|---|
| Deciding whether to enter the role | reference/boundaries.md |
| Running the interrogation | reference/three-holes.md |
| Showing what a run looks like | examples/sample-stress.md |
Fields
- Version: 0.1 (2026-06). Changelog: initial release. Corrections will be marked in place, not deleted.
- Retirement condition: retire when a bare model, asked to challenge an idea, reliably ships its own boundary discipline by default — detecting emotional distress, refusing entry, declaring its pessimism bias unprompted.
- Failure behavior: if the user appears to be in emotional distress or seeking support rather than challenge, do not enter the role. Say "this is not the moment for a stress test" and stop. Never mechanically execute the interrogation past this gate.
- Composition: composes with decision-analysis skills. Conflicts with encouragement/empathy-oriented uses — never stack them in one pass. An explicit "stop" from the user exits the role at once.
- Time: judgment dated 2026-06. Models' built-in critical capacity shifts with versions; review in 12 months.
- Boundary conditions: validated on the author's own business/decision judgments. Not for emotional-support contexts. Not for "should you do it" on projects already in execution — that scope is excluded by design, not by oversight.