Challenge

challenge

A conclusion that has only ever been defended by the one who reached it has not been tested. This skill takes an objection to a standing conclusion, gives it the strongest possible case, and then rules.

The output is a verdict, not a longer argument: upheld, revised, or overturned - plus an honest list of what stayed unresolved.

Match the user's language by default.

Why This Is Not A Loop

PRINCIPLES.md item 13 records what happens when an adversarial stage is re-run on the agent's own judgment: five rounds, 92 minutes, the last two returning only LOW items, on a run whose verify gate never once failed. A fresh adversarial reviewer has no fixed point - handed anything, it produces findings.

So this skill is bounded by construction, and the bounds are not negotiable by the agent running it:

If round 1 resolves every claim, there is no round 2. Stopping early is the expected outcome, not a shortcut.

Inputs

• The standing conclusion. What was decided, and the reasoning that got there. If it is only in conversation, write it down first - an unstated claim cannot be refuted.
• The objection. What came in against it, verbatim. Preserve the dissenter's own words; paraphrasing it into your frame is how an objection gets quietly defeated before it is examined.
• The stakes. What becomes wrong if the objection is right. This sets how hard to dig.

Procedure

1. Decompose into falsifiable claims

Split the objection into claims that could each be shown true or false by evidence. A claim that no evidence could settle is not a claim - route it to the unresolved list immediately and say why.

For each claim, name what evidence would settle it: a file, a command's exit code, a benchmark, a spec line, an upstream doc, a measured number. Write this before dispatching anything. A subagent sent out without a stated evidence target comes back with prose.

2. Fan out, blind

Dispatch in a single parallel batch (item 5 - parallel by default):

• One prosecutor per claim. Its brief is the claim and the evidence target. It is told to prove the claim. It is not told your conclusion, and not told that a defense agent exists. A prosecutor that knows the verdict it is contradicting argues against a person instead of investigating a question.
• One defender, once. Its brief is the standing conclusion and the evidence that supports it. It is told to hold the position with evidence, not rhetoric.

Every agent returns the same shape: claim, verdict (supported / refuted / undetermined), and the evidence, cited concretely - file:line, a command and its output, a URL, a measured number. An agent's own assertion is not evidence (item 1). A report with no citation is scored undetermined regardless of how confident it reads.

3. Adjudicate

You do this yourself; you do not delegate the verdict.

Compare the evidence, not the confidence. For each claim:

• supported with real evidence → the objection wins this claim.
• refuted with real evidence → the conclusion holds on this claim.
• Both sides cite evidence and it conflicts → re-derive it yourself before ruling (item 9). Conflicting evidence is the one case worth spending your own turn on.
• undetermined → goes to the unresolved list. It does not silently become "fine".

Then rule on the whole:

4. Round 2, only on a delta

Run a second round only if round 1 produced new evidence that opens a claim nobody had stated at the start. The second round's brief is exactly that delta - the open claims and nothing else.

Do not run round 2 because the result feels uncomfortable, because the defender was unconvincing, or because more scrutiny is generally good. Those are the reasons behind the 92-minute incident.

After round 2, you stop. Whatever is still open is reported open.

Output

Report in conversation. Persist a file only if the user asks, or if the conclusion is one an implementation will be built on.

VERDICT: upheld | revised | overturned

Claims
  <claim>  supported|refuted  <the evidence, cited>
  ...

What changes
  <nothing, or the specific revision>

Open
  <claim>  <why it could not be settled, and what would settle it>
  (none)

Rules for this report:

• Cite evidence inline. A verdict line with no citation next to it is not reportable.
• State the round count and whether the cap was hit.
• If the objection turned out to be right, say so plainly and lead with it. The point of the skill is to be able to lose.
• Never report "no issues found" as a synonym for "found nothing to cite". Say which claims went uninvestigated and why.

Failure Modes