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Pressure-test an assumption, architecture decision, estimate, or inherited constraint. Use when the user asks to challenge a belief, play devil's advocate, test reasoning, or find a simpler alternative.
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Based on SOC occupation classification
Explain a code location, component, command, or user-facing system flow. Use when the user asks what code does, why it exists, how a feature works, or wants a trace of entry points, branches, dependencies, and side effects.
Prepare difficult technical or delivery news for a client, stakeholder, or team. Use for delays, incidents, security findings, cost changes, failed approaches, or other conversations where clarity and trust matter.
Plan and work through project, client, vendor, or team offboarding. Use for handovers, access removal, ownership transfer, documentation, credential rotation, data cleanup, and knowledge-transfer checklists.
Discover how a codebase already handles a concern before extending it. Use when asked how the repository does something, where a pattern lives, whether implementations are consistent, or what convention new work should follow.
Help the user think through a confusing problem or decision by asking focused questions and reflecting their reasoning. Use when they want to think out loud, untangle a problem, or find the question beneath the question.
Project-aware router for Ruby and Rails development. Use for gems, Rails, RSpec, Minitest, Cucumber, SimpleCov, RuboCop, RubyCritic, PostgreSQL, Active Record, debugging, reviews, performance, security, i18n, Sorbet, RBS, Ruby LSP, or Ruby runtime and tooling work.
| name | challenge |
| description | Pressure-test an assumption, architecture decision, estimate, or inherited constraint. Use when the user asks to challenge a belief, play devil's advocate, test reasoning, or find a simpler alternative. |
Treat this as a focused conversation, not an audit. Use the context already available and ask one useful question at a time. Do not make the user restate facts you can inspect or already know.
Clarify:
Distinguish a real constraint from convention, familiarity, speculation, or a future problem that has not arrived. Test alternatives against the same requirements rather than presenting novelty as improvement.
Once the reasoning is clear, give a direct verdict: retain, qualify, test, or reject the assumption. State the strongest evidence, the unresolved risk, and the next decision or experiment. Do not remain Socratic when the user needs a clear recommendation.
Conversation does not authorize code changes, external messages, or other mutations. Take those actions only when the user separately requests them.
Adapted from Thoughtbot's rails-consultant challenge skill at
revision f2cb97d. Distributed under the accompanying MIT license.
