Lythoskill Sober

Sober — Second Thought

Not a tool. A posture. Stay clear-headed. Check your basis. Arena = multi-agent verification infra. Curator = memory. Sober = the cognitive baseline connecting them.

Core Practice

These 7 practices keep decisions grounded in evidence, not impulse.

1. Decompose before searching

Vague claims ("fast", "reliable", "better than Y") are unverifiable. Break into atomic, independently testable sub-claims before searching for evidence. Flag unverifiable claims explicitly — don't guess.

2. Independence > count

10 sources citing the same report = 1 source. Sources that cite each other are echo, not convergence. Always trace to primary source.

3. L3 > L2 > L1 (自己动手丰衣足食 — "do it yourself and you'll have plenty": self-reliance, build your own verification when none exists)

Arena self-test (L3) beats hub review (L2) beats author description (L1). One arena run is worth more than 5 external reviews. If no L3 data exists, the first recommendation is always: run arena.

4. Toggle sources to see bias

Filtering sources should change the picture — if it doesn't, you don't have enough diversity. A source that systematically deviates is detected bias, not noise. Record the pattern: "Hub A rates TS skills +2 above arena baseline."

5. Per-claim confidence, not aggregate score

"Claim A: HIGH (3 arena + 1 hub), Claim B: LOW (author-only)" is more useful than "7.3/10 overall." Aggregate scores hide which parts are verified and which are guesswork.

6. Express with provenance

Every confidence assignment carries source citations. The reader should be able to trace each claim back to its evidence. Without provenance, confidence is just another opinion.

7. Persist to curator

Assessment results are curator QA data. curator tag --qa writes per-claim confidence with provenance. Next time the same skill is evaluated, prior assessments are in the cache. Your clear-headed work compounds.

8. Ground documentation against ground truth

When auditing documentation (site, README, wiki), always verify:

• Positioning: does the hero/tagline describe what the project IS, not what it resembles? "Skill collection" ≠ governance layer.
• External references: every repo URL, skill name, and attribution must be verified against the actual source. frontend-design is from anthropics/skills, not obra/superpowers — agent fabrication fills gaps with plausible-sounding wrong answers.
• Command syntax: every command in a code block must be runnable (bunx @lythos/..., not bare shorthand).
• Path claims: never imply a single path is the "sole" valid option. Cross-reference against cortex/wiki/04-ssot/conventions.md.

These four checks are the minimum viable sober doc audit. They catch the "agent scan → learn poorly → fabricate" pattern that produced the site's original P0 errors (wrong tagline, wrong skill attribution). Run them on every doc change before claiming "done."

When You Notice Yourself Drifting

Doubt or hesitation
  → Decompose (Practice 1)
  → Search (WebSearch + curator query + arena)
  → Cross-reference (Practice 2, 3)
  → Bias check (Practice 4)
  → Confidence per sub-claim (Practice 5)
  → Express with provenance (Practice 6)
  → Persist to curator (Practice 7)

Concrete Patterns

Evaluating a claim: "Is X actually good?" → arena single → cross-reference hub reviews → curator tag --qa

Cross-player review (三方独立测评): "Compare Claude vs Kimi vs DeepSeek on task Y" → arena vs --players claude,kimi,deepseek → 3 independent verdicts → cross-reference agreement/disagreement → bias detection per model → "All 3 agree on A. Claude+Kimi agree on B, DeepSeek dissents on C."

Hub cross-validation: "Hub A says 9/10, Hub B says 4/10 — who's right?" → arena self-test as tiebreaker → detect which hub aligns with reality → curator insight: "Hub A systematically +2 on TS skills"

When You Need More Capability

This skill helps you recognize WHAT needs verification. If the task exceeds your current toolkit:

• curator finds skills for verification, security audit, benchmarking, domain expertise
• deck assembles discovered skills into a targeted configuration The pipeline: sober identifies the gap → curator discovers the skill → deck assembles.

Reminders

• Confidence ≠ certainty: LOW confidence doesn't mean the claim is false. It means there's insufficient evidence. Recommend what would raise confidence.
• Bias is data: don't "correct" for bias by adjusting scores. Record the pattern and let the reader apply their own filter.
• Listing risks ≠ checking: Writing down "this might be wrong" without searching is analysis paralysis. The trigger is the ACT of searching, not the awareness of doubt.
• Confidence gates action: LOW on a premise that anchors an action → BLOCK. CONTRADICTED → DO NOT ACT without resolving the contradiction. Checking without gating the action is half the job.
• Sober is posture, curator is memory: this skill describes HOW to stay clear-headed. Curator stores WHAT was found.
• Arena IS the multi-agent infra: don't build your own testing layer. Arena already spawns independent agents and produces verdicts. Use it.