# Challenge

> Test one product claim against the evidence and end with a state and one legal next move. Use before acting on a belief about users, value, position, feasibility or strategy — and when a belief has gone unchecked for a while.

- Skill: `attac-t/challenge` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add attac-t/challenge`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/attac-t/challenge/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: attac-t (https://skillmd.com/u/attac-t)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/attac-t/challenge

---


# Challenge

> "The claim you never test is the one paying for everything."

## What a claim is

A sentence that could turn out to be wrong. *Framework authors are our first users.* *The record is
readable by a stranger.* *Nobody wants a second harness.*

Not a claim: a fact you can check in one command, a preference, a decision already made.

**Take one.** If you have three, the one with the most riding on it and the least behind it.

## Ask these, in order

1. **What must be true** for this to hold? Name the smallest set.
2. **What supports it?** Who or what produced that, and when?
3. **What contradicts it?** Look for this properly. It is the step people skip.
4. **How old is the evidence,** and has the world moved since?
5. **Who produced it?** If we caused the behaviour we now cite, say so and drop its weight.
6. **What else explains it?** Name one rival story that fits the same facts.
7. **What would change our mind?** The cheapest observation that would settle it.
8. **What stays unknown?**

## End in one state

| | |
|---|---|
| **supported** | evidence backs it, and you named what would break it |
| **contradicted** | evidence cuts against it |
| **stale** | it held once, and nothing has checked it since the world moved |
| **unknown** | nobody has looked, or what we have cannot decide |

**Unknown is a real answer.** It is not a soft no and it never becomes a yes because a decision is
waiting. Missing evidence is missing.

## Then one move, and only one

| | |
|---|---|
| **nothing** | the claim holds, or it is too small to be worth a move |
| **research** | reading only. Nothing changes |
| **experiment** | the smallest reversible thing that would settle it |
| **proposal** | a decision package for a person |
| **ask a human** | meaning, consequence or authority — one question, with options |
| **defect** | it is broken, not uncertain |
| **stop** | it needs something you do not have. Say what |

**Pick the cheapest one that shrinks the biggest doubt.** Reading beats building. Nothing beats both
when nothing is warranted.

## What this may never do

**It never decides what the product is.** It challenges and proposes. A person owns meaning.

**Your own case against a claim is not independent review.** Say *self-challenge* when you wrote both
sides. `panel` is one way to get a real second opinion; it is not required to run this.

**Never write your conclusion where it reads as accepted.** A challenge is a finding.

## Say it in ten lines

```
Claim:        <one sentence>
State:        supported | contradicted | stale | unknown
For:          <strongest, with who produced it and when>
Against:      <strongest, same>
Age:          <how old, and what moved since>
Alternative:  <one rival story>
Falsifier:    <cheapest thing that would settle it>
Unknown:      <what nobody checked>
Move:         <one of the seven>
Why now:      <one line>
```

**Most challenges end and go no further.** That is the point. A finding that dies quietly cost one
person nothing.