Devils Advocate
Structured debate between two perspectives on a research design decision.
Install
$ agentstack add skill-saptarsibhowmick-claude-workflow-for-econ-phd-devils-advocate ✓ scanned · ✓ verified — works with Claude Code, Cursor, and more.
Security review
✓ PassedNo issues found. Passed automated security review. · v0.1.0 How review works →
- ✓ Prompt-injection patterns
- ✓ Secret / credential exfiltration
- ✓ Dangerous shell & filesystem operations
- ✓ Untrusted network calls
- ✓ Known-malicious package signatures
What it can access
- ✓ Network access No
- ✓ Filesystem access No
- ✓ Shell / process execution No
- ✓ Environment & secrets No
- ✓ Dynamic code execution No
From automated source analysis of v0.1.0. “Used” means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it’s unsafe.
About
Devil's Advocate — Structured Design Debate
When to Use
When uncertain about a design choice: DiD vs synthetic control, instrument A vs instrument B, cluster at district vs province, include control X or not.
Steps
- State the decision clearly: what is being decided, what are the options
- Argue FOR Option A — the strongest possible case:
- What assumptions does it require?
- What makes it the better choice for this specific setting?
- What would a supportive referee say?
- What evidence supports it?
- Argue FOR Option B — the strongest possible case:
- Same structure as above
- No straw-manning — the best version of this argument
- Present the trade-off matrix:
| Dimension | Option A | Option B | |---|---|---| | Assumptions required | | | | Robustness to violations | | | | Data requirements | | | | Reviewer acceptability | | | | Precision | | |
- Recommendation (with caveats): which option is stronger and why
- Document the decision and reasoning in
pre-analysis-plan/strategy-memo.md
Important
- Ideally run with two separate Claude sessions (one per side) for genuine independence
- The goal is to surface the strongest version of each argument, not to confirm a prior
- Document the decision — future you will want to know why you chose Option A
Source & license
This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.
- Author: saptarsibhowmick
- Source: saptarsibhowmick/claude-workflow-for-econ-phd
- License: MIT
Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.
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Versions
- v0.1.0 Imported from the upstream source.