| name | ck:predict |
| description | 5 expert personas debate proposed changes before implementation. Catches architectural, security, performance, and UX issues early. Use before major features or risky changes. |
| user-invocable | true |
| when_to_use | Invoke before high-risk changes that need persona debate. |
| category | utilities |
| keywords | ["prediction","debate","review","risk"] |
| argument-hint | <feature description or change proposal> [--files <glob>] [--chain reason|probe] |
| metadata | {"author":"claudekit","attribution":"Multi-persona prediction pattern adapted from autoresearch by Udit Goenka (MIT)","license":"MIT","version":"1.0.0"} |
ck:predict — Multi-Persona Pre-Analysis
Five expert personas independently analyze a proposed change, then debate conflicts to produce a consensus verdict before a single line of code is written.
When to Use
- Before implementing a major or high-risk feature
- Before a significant refactor or architecture change
- Evaluating competing technical approaches
- Stress-testing assumptions in a proposed design
When NOT to Use
- Trivial or low-risk changes (use
ck:debug for bugs, ck:plan for already-decided tasks)
- Already-approved work with no open design questions
- Pure dependency upgrades with no API changes
The 5 Personas
| Persona | Focus | Core Questions |
|---|
| Architect | System design, scalability, coupling | Does this fit the architecture? Will it scale? What new coupling does it introduce? |
| Security | Attack surface, data protection, auth | What can be abused? Where is data exposed? Are auth boundaries respected? |
| Performance | Latency, memory, queries, bundle size | What is the latency impact? N+1 queries? Memory leaks? Bundle bloat? |
| UX | User experience, accessibility, error states | Is this intuitive? What does the error state look like? Accessible on mobile? |
| Devil's Advocate | Hidden assumptions, simpler alternatives | Why not do nothing? What is the simplest alternative? Which assumption could be wrong? |
Debate Protocol
- Read the proposed change/feature description from the argument
- Read relevant code if file paths are provided (grep for affected areas)
- Each persona analyzes independently — do not let personas influence each other during this phase
- Identify agreements — points where all (or 4+) personas align
- Identify conflicts — points where personas meaningfully disagree
- Weigh tradeoffs — for each conflict, evaluate which concern has higher impact
- Produce verdict — GO / CAUTION / STOP with actionable recommendations
Output Format
## Prediction Report: [proposal title]
## Verdict: GO | CAUTION | STOP
### Agreements (all personas align)
- [Point 1 — what they all agree on]
- [Point 2]
### Conflicts & Resolutions
| Topic | Architect | Security | Performance | UX | Devil's Advocate | Resolution |
|-------|-----------|----------|-------------|-----|-----------------|------------|
| [Issue] | [View] | [View] | [View] | [View] | [View] | [Recommendation] |
### Risk Summary
| Risk | Severity | Mitigation |
|------|----------|------------|
| [Risk description] | Critical/High/Medium/Low | [Concrete action] |
### Recommendations
1. [Action item — rationale]
2. [Action item — rationale]
3. [Action item — rationale]
Verdict Levels
| Verdict | Meaning |
|---|
| GO | All personas aligned, no critical risks, proceed with confidence |
| CAUTION | Concerns exist but are manageable — mitigations identified, proceed carefully |
| STOP | Critical unresolved issue found — needs redesign or more information before proceeding |
STOP Triggers (any one is sufficient)
- Security persona identifies auth bypass or data exposure with no viable mitigation
- Architect identifies fundamental design incompatibility requiring significant rework
- Performance persona identifies unacceptable latency or query explosion with no workaround
- Devil's Advocate exposes a false assumption that invalidates the entire approach
Chain Modes
After producing the verdict, predict can chain into a follow-on workflow that always runs as part of a predict session (not as a standalone skill).
| Flag | Purpose | When to use |
|---|
--chain reason | Subjective refinement loop — generate → critique → synthesize → blind judge → repeat until convergence | Verdict is CAUTION with subjective tradeoffs (architecture polish, design coherence) |
--chain probe | Requirement interrogation — saturation-driven harvest of missing constraints + assumptions | Verdict is CAUTION or STOP because of "missing constraint" or "unstated assumption" findings |
Full protocols, output formats, safety guards, and combining rules: see references/chain-modes.md.
These chain modes absorb upstream /autoresearch:reason and /autoresearch:probe (uditgoenka/autoresearch, MIT). They're folded into ck:predict — not shipped as standalone skills — because they always chain off a predict invocation. See /ck:autoresearch for the family map.
Integration with Other Skills
| Workflow Step | Skill | How |
|---|
| Deepen risk scenarios | ck:scenario | Feed Risk Summary rows as feature description |
| Create implementation plan | ck:plan | Attach Recommendations as constraints to planner |
| High-risk feature implementation | ck:cook | Reference CAUTION/STOP items as acceptance gates |
Example Invocations
/ck:predict "Add WebSocket support for real-time notifications"
/ck:predict "Migrate authentication from JWT to session cookies"
/ck:predict "Add multi-tenancy to the database layer"
/ck:predict "Replace REST API with GraphQL" --files src/api/**/*.ts
# Chain modes
/ck:predict "Pick auth library: Passport vs Better Auth" --chain reason
/ck:predict "Move from REST to GraphQL" --chain probe
Lineage
Faithful absorption (in scope) of upstream /autoresearch:predict (uditgoenka/autoresearch, MIT). The local version supports the 5-persona debate plus --chain reason (subjective refinement) and --chain probe (requirement interrogation), folding upstream's /autoresearch:reason and /autoresearch:probe sub-commands into chain modes rather than separate skills (closed in #728).
See /ck:autoresearch for the full family map.
