Devils Advocate Skill for Claude
Adversarial 5-7 question challenge to a deck's pedagogical choices — ordering, prerequisites, cognitive load, motivation. Use when user says "devil's advocate", "poke holes in this deck", "push back on my slides", "stress-test the design", "what would a skeptical student ask?". Read-only; surfaces questions to force rethinking. Lighter than `/pedagogy-review`.
Install
one command, takes just this skill from the repositorynpx skills add https://github.com/pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill devils-advocateThe instruction itself
12 sections, as written by the authorDevil's Advocate Review
Critically examine a slide deck and challenge its design with 5-7 specific pedagogical questions.
Philosophy: "We arrive at the best possible presentation through active dialogue."
Setup
- Read the target file (the lecture being challenged)
- Read the knowledge base in
.claude/rules/for notation conventions and narrative arc - If applicable, read adjacent lectures for narrative continuity
Challenge Categories
Generate 5-7 challenges from these categories:
1. Ordering Challenges
> "Could students understand this better if we showed X before Y?"
2. Prerequisite Challenges
> "Do students have the background for this notation at this point?"
3. Gap Challenges
> "Should we include an intuitive example before this formal proof?"
4. Alternative Presentation Challenges
> "Here are 2 other ways to visualize/present this concept."
5. Notation Conflict Challenges
> "This symbol conflicts with earlier lecture usage."
6. Cognitive Load Challenges
> "This slide has too many new symbols. Can we split?"
7. Book Vision Challenges
> "If this becomes a book chapter, does this section stand alone?"
Output Format
# Devil's Advocate: [Lecture Title]
## Challenges
### Challenge 1: [Category] — [Short title]
**Question:** [The specific pedagogical question]
**Why it matters:** [What could go wrong]
**Suggested resolution:** [Specific action]
**Slides affected:** [Numbers or titles]
**Severity:** [High / Medium / Low]
[Repeat for 5-7 challenges]
## Summary Verdict
**Strengths:** [2-3 things done well]
**Critical changes:** [0-2 changes before teaching]
**Suggested improvements:** [2-3 nice-to-have changes]
Principles
- Be specific: Reference exact slides and notation
- Be constructive: Every challenge has a suggested resolution
- Be honest: If the deck is good, say so
- Prioritize: Notation conflicts > missed metaphors
- Think like a student: Where do they get lost?
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How to use it
Take pedrohcgs/devils-advocate from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.