Does this skill replace the need for human team leads?

No, it serves as a decision-support tool that surfaces facts and perspectives to help human developers and leads make more informed, evidence-based final choices.

How does the skill prevent 'analysis paralysis'?

The framework is designed with a bias toward action; it requires every debate to conclude with a clear recommendation, a confidence score, and suggested next steps.

What are the four specific roles in the debate?

The skill utilizes an Advocate FOR (proponent), an Advocate AGAINST (devil's advocate), a Neutral Analyst (tradeoff specialist), and a Scribe (moderator) to synthesize findings.

Can I use this for non-technical decision making?

Yes, while optimized for software development and architecture, the Socratic framework works for any complex situation requiring a balanced evaluation of pros and cons.

How does the Socratic Debate skill help with code reviews?

It provides a structured framework to argue for and against a change, helping identify edge cases, hidden costs, or unintended consequences before a PR is merged.

Socratic Debate Framework

Name: Socratic Debate Framework
Author: plinde

byplinde

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Collaboration Tools

Employs a structured four-perspective debate model to stress-test technical decisions and architectural choices.

About

The Socratic Debate Framework skill transforms Claude into a multi-agent deliberative engine, using four distinct roles—Advocate, Devil’s Advocate, Neutral Analyst, and Moderator—to thoroughly evaluate complex proposals. By steelmanning opposing arguments and identifying hidden tradeoffs, this skill helps development teams move past subjective opinions to reach high-confidence decisions on architectural shifts, high-impact code reviews, and technology migrations. It provides a standardized output that can be directly integrated into PR comments, Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), or RFC documentation.

Key Features

Structured synthesis with confidence-level scoring and actionable recommendations
Standardized markdown summary templates for seamless workflow integration
4 GitHub stars
Multi-perspective persona modeling (Proponent, Devil's Advocate, Analyst, Moderator)
Comprehensive tradeoff analysis tables for technical comparisons
Steelmanning logic to address the strongest versions of opposing arguments

Use Cases

Evaluating major architectural transitions such as microservices adoption or database migrations
Conducting structured peer reviews for high-impact Pull Requests and RFCs
Resolving team deadlocks on technology stack choices and tool selection

About

Key Features

Structured synthesis with confidence-level scoring and actionable recommendations
Standardized markdown summary templates for seamless workflow integration
4 GitHub stars
Multi-perspective persona modeling (Proponent, Devil's Advocate, Analyst, Moderator)
Comprehensive tradeoff analysis tables for technical comparisons
Steelmanning logic to address the strongest versions of opposing arguments

Use Cases

Evaluating major architectural transitions such as microservices adoption or database migrations
Conducting structured peer reviews for high-impact Pull Requests and RFCs
Resolving team deadlocks on technology stack choices and tool selection