How do I install the Doubt Driven Development skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add yjhqwer/doubt-driven-development in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Doubt Driven Development safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. Capability flags: docs only. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Doubt Driven Development?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Doubt Driven Development free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Doubt Driven Development?

yjhqwer (@yjhqwer) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Doubt Driven Development by yjhqwer

Name: Doubt Driven Development
Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Author: yjhqwer

Doubt Driven Development

Subjects every non-trivial decision to a fresh-context adversarial review before it stands. Use when a decision modifies branching logic, crosses a module or service boundary, asserts a property no compiler can check, depends on unseen context, has an irreversible blast radius, settles a prior-art verdict (Adopt/Extend/Compose/Build), or any time a confident output would be cheaper to verify now than to debug later.

yjhqwer Updated Sep 22, 2026

File contents

Doubt-Driven Development

A decision that was never attacked is not validated — it is untested. Before a non-trivial decision becomes the plan, a fresh-context reviewer whose only job is to prove it wrong gets one swing at it.

When it fires

Any of:

the change modifies branching logic
it crosses a module or service boundary
it asserts a property no compiler or type-checker can verify
it depends on context the decision-maker cannot see
its blast radius is irreversible (production auth, security-sensitive logic, data migration, public-facing actions)
a prior-art verdict (Adopt / Extend / Compose / Build) is about to be recorded

When it stays silent (exclusions)

Mechanical operations; changes the user explicitly prescribed; reading and summarizing; one-line obvious changes; pure tooling work; and any time the user has chosen speed over verification. When "non-trivial" is genuinely unclear, the cost asymmetry decides: a refutation run costs minutes, debugging a confident wrong decision costs hours.

Procedure

FRAME — Write the decision as an ARTIFACT (the plan, design, or verdict itself) plus a CONTRACT (the acceptance criteria it must meet). The artifact never travels with the author's reasoning or self-defense.
REFUTE — Dispatch a fresh-context subagent with the artifact and contract only:

Adversarial review. Find what is wrong with this artifact. Assume the author is overconfident. Check it against the contract only. Do NOT validate. Do NOT summarize. Report every gap as: claim → why it fails → what evidence would change your mind.
RESOLVE — Fix the artifact for each surviving gap and re-run the refuter. Maximum 3 cycles; if the third cycle still refutes, stop and take the decision to the human with both sides summarized.

The refuter never sees the author's justification — only what was decided and the bar it must clear. Fresh context is the point: no shared enthusiasm, no sunk-cost politeness.

Extended from addyosmani/agent-skills doubt-driven-development (MIT); trigger list extended with prior-art verdicts.

---name: doubt-driven-developmentdescription: Subjects every non-trivial decision to a fresh-context adversarial review before it stands. Use when a decision modifies branching logic, crosses a module or service boundary, asserts a property no compiler can check, depends on unseen context, has an irreversible blast radius, settles a prior-art verdict (Adopt/Extend/Compose/Build), or any time a confident output would be cheaper to verify now than to debug later.---# Doubt-Driven DevelopmentA decision that was never attacked is not validated — it is untested. Before a non-trivial decision becomes the plan, a fresh-context reviewer whose only job is to prove it wrong gets one swing at it.## When it firesAny of:- the change modifies branching logic- it crosses a module or service boundary- it asserts a property no compiler or type-checker can verify- it depends on context the decision-maker cannot see- its blast radius is irreversible (production auth, security-sensitive logic, data migration, public-facing actions)- a prior-art verdict (Adopt / Extend / Compose / Build) is about to be recorded## When it stays silent (exclusions)Mechanical operations; changes the user explicitly prescribed; reading and summarizing; one-line obvious changes; pure tooling work; and any time the user has chosen speed over verification. When "non-trivial" is genuinely unclear, the cost asymmetry decides: a refutation run costs minutes, debugging a confident wrong decision costs hours.## Procedure1. **FRAME** — Write the decision as an **ARTIFACT** (the plan, design, or verdict itself) plus a **CONTRACT** (the acceptance criteria it must meet). The artifact never travels with the author's reasoning or self-defense.2. **REFUTE** — Dispatch a fresh-context subagent with the artifact and contract only: > Adversarial review. Find what is wrong with this artifact. Assume the author is overconfident. Check it against the contract only. Do NOT validate. Do NOT summarize. Report every gap as: claim → why it fails → what evidence would change your mind.3. **RESOLVE** — Fix the artifact for each surviving gap and re-run the refuter. Maximum **3 cycles**; if the third cycle still refutes, stop and take the decision to the human with both sides summarized.The refuter never sees the author's justification — only what was decided and the bar it must clear. Fresh context is the point: no shared enthusiasm, no sunk-cost politeness.---*Extended from addyosmani/agent-skills `doubt-driven-development` (MIT); trigger list extended with prior-art verdicts.*

Frequently asked questions