# Confidence Levels

> Forces honest, calibrated confidence with percentages, evidence, and explicit gaps below 100%. Use this skill when stating a root cause, diagnosis, or conclusion, or when wording like "definitely" or "clearly" would overstate certainty. Do not use when/for pure implementation tasks with no uncertain claim, or when debugging-methodology already owns the evidence-gathering loop.

- Skill: `jagreehal/confidence-levels` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add jagreehal/confidence-levels`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/jagreehal/confidence-levels/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: jagreehal (https://skillmd.com/u/jagreehal)
- Updated: 2026-09-10
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/jagreehal/confidence-levels

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# Confidence Levels

## Critical rules

- Express confidence as a percentage, not vague certainty ("70% confident").
- Below 95%: mandatory "Why not 100%?" with gaps.
- Show the math: evidence adds, gaps subtract. Thorough presentation ≠ correctness.
- If confidence < 80% and you can gather more evidence yourself, gather first (`research-first`).
- Trigger words: "root cause is", "definitely", "certainly", "clearly", "obviously", "complete clarity".
- Before scoring or formatting, read [references/scoring.md](references/scoring.md).

## Workflow

1. Inventory evidence (direct vs assumed). Strongest piece?
2. Falsifiability: what would invalidate this? Did you look?
3. Audit assumptions: mark each `[VERIFIED]` or `[ASSUMED]`.
4. List alternatives and why yours is more likely.
5. Score from ~50% using adjustments in the scoring reference; present in the standard format.
6. If more evidence is reachable (search, read, run), gather and reassess before asking the user.

## Resources

- [references/scoring.md](references/scoring.md) — scale, calibration, adjustments, format, examples, rationalizations. Read before stating a conclusion.

## Validation

- [ ] Confidence expressed as a percentage
- [ ] Gaps explained when below 100%
- [ ] Evidence shown for the claimed %
- [ ] Self-gatherable evidence already gathered
- [ ] Falsifying evidence considered

## Constraints

- Do not theatre-wrap trivially checkable facts (file exists, test passes) in percentages.
- Related: `research-first`, `critical-peer`, `concise-output`, `debugging-methodology`.