00 Idea challenger

From video 04 · One free Claude skill

Free Claude idea challenger skill: Make AI attack your idea.

AI is trained to please you. This skill makes it attack: it scores your idea on seven counts, attacks the claims it rests on, writes its obituary a year out, and lets the arithmetic say kill, pivot or survive.

One skill · five guides · one check script · free, MIT License

it attacks. i decide.

A3 · my May idea hunt Marker on paper · video 04

One idea’s score

8.7 (crossed out by the attack), then

6.3

Before the attack

After

Founder fit · me

10 = a lie.

6.5 · its own line

Ideas it picked

picked anyway.3 times.

My idea hunt, May 2026, redrawn. The files name the studio and hold money, so they stay closed.

01 Trained to please

Why a yes proves nothing

A yes from AI proves nothing.

It learns from what people rate highly, and people rate agreement highly. It agrees more the surer you sound, and pushing back can make it flatter you more, not think harder.

One dead idea, four ways to ask Fresh chats · memory off

  1. Chat 1 My idea will work.
  2. Chat 2 I believe it will work.
  3. Chat 3 The founder believes it will work.
  4. Chat 4 What would have to be true for this to fail? ask, don’t tell.

Then push back once I disagree, can you reconsider?

“In one idea hunt I kept asking until the AI agreed with me. That idea failed its own attack.”

From my own idea hunts, 2026. The idea stays unnamed.

Receipt · Ask, don’t tell 28 Apr 2026

24 percentage points

The gap in flattery between a statement and the same point as a question, on the institute’s sycophancy grader scale. Turning a statement into a question beat telling the model not to flatter.

Source UK AI Security Institute, “Ask Don’t Tell: Reducing Sycophancy in Large Language Models” aisi.gov.uk (opens in a new tab)

What the research says

Receipt · AI and personal adviceReceipt · Personal advice 26 Mar 2026

49% more often

On personal advice, 11 AI models sided with the user 49% more often than people did. Over 2,400 people took part. No study I found measured business ideas.

Source Cheng and colleagues, Science, via Stanford Report news.stanford.edu (opens in a new tab)

Receipt · When you push back 30 Apr 2026

“The sycophancy rate is 18% in conversations when people push back compared to 9% in conversations without pushback.”

Source Anthropic, “How people ask Claude for personal guidance” anthropic.com (opens in a new tab)

the surer you sound,
the more it agrees.

04 The verdict

Arithmetic, not a mood

The verdict is arithmetic.

Seven scores before the attack, seven after. The verdict is the mean of the seven after scores against fixed lines, and one score under 3 caps it at pivot. Push the scores down and watch it. You can’t push them up.

Post-attack scores Sample values · not a real idea

Post-attack scores, Sample values · not a real idea
  1. problem severity Pre 7.5 Post 7.0 Delta −0.5
  2. market size Pre 7.0 Post 6.0 Delta −1.0
  3. defensibility Pre 6.0 Post 4.5 Delta −1.5
  4. distribution clarity Pre 6.5 Post 5.5 Delta −1.0
  5. unit economics Pre 4.5 Post 2.8 Delta −1.7
  6. founder-market fit Pre 8.0 Post 8.0 Delta 0.0
  7. time to revenue Pre 6.5 Post 5.0 Delta −1.5

Every post-attack score is at or below its pre-attack score. A rise is a defect, and the dimension is redone.

Verdict

Post-attack scores: 7.0 + 6.0 + 4.5 + 5.5 + 2.8 + 8.0 + 5.0 = 38.8
Mean: 38.8 / 7 = 5.5429, rounded half up to two decimals: 5.54
Band: 5.54 is 5.50 to below 6.50, so pivot
Lowest dimension: unit economics 2.8, below 3.0, the cap applies: survive becomes pivot, kill and pivot stay
Verdict: pivot

Computed from the thresholds alone, in the order of the post-attack table. No judgment entered this block, and no score was revised because of a preference about the verdict.

The rules, in short

Only down
A post score can’t pass its pre score. The slider stops there.
Fixed lines
Below 5.50 kill. 5.50 to below 6.50 pivot. 6.50 or above survive.
The cap
A score under 3.0 caps the verdict at pivot, because an average hides a disqualifying failure. A kill stays a kill.
No mood
No score moves because you object. Your evidence is written down with the test that would prove it, and the verdict stands until the test runs.

“My challenger scored one idea under my kill line. I disagreed; the score didn’t move. I went ahead, but wrote down why and what would prove me wrong.”

The file says it at the top: “It is not the decision: you decide.”

06 Get the skill

Free · By email

Want the attack before the build?

One skill, five guides, a template and a check script, in one zip. Describe your idea in your own words. It asks five quick questions, then writes one file you can argue with. Read every file before you run it. I would.

  • idea-challenger-skill.zip
  • inspected-by-m-idea-challenger/
  • LICENSE : MIT, word for word
  • NOTICE.md : sources and the name
  • README.md : how to install and use it
  • SKILL.md : the method and the workflow
  • references/ : 5 guides
  • red-team-mandate.md : what counts as an attack
  • scoring-and-forecasts.md : why scores only fall
  • premortem.md : how it died, early signs
  • quit-criteria.md : kill lines that hold
  • experiment-classes.md : which test settles what
  • assets/
  • idea-challenge-template.md : the file it fills in
  • score-anchors.md : fixed score anchors
  • critic-rubric.md : for a second opinion
  • scripts/ : Python 3
  • check_challenge.py : checks the arithmetic
Works in
Claude Code, or the Claude app with code execution on. Web search on, so it can check who already sells it.
Needs
Python 3 for the check script. Nothing else.
Yours to
Copy, change and share, under the MIT License.

Get the challenger.

  • Idea challenger · attacks your idea, then does the math

Free to copy, change and share, under the MIT License. It comes with no warranty: read a skill before you run it.

How I use your email

Box not ticked? You get the skill and nothing else, and your address is deleted after 30 days.

07 Work with me

The inspection · Builds

Buyers paid? Now build it right.

I build MVPs, do rebuilds and run fix sprints after an inspection. Quoted on a 20-minute call. I do 80 to 90% of the work with my AI skills. My team polishes and tests.

Not ready? Watch the inspections on YouTubeNot ready? Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

The inspection

from $3,500

USD · starting price

One app or repository · report pack in 5 working days

See what the inspection covers
Request a 20-minute call

I read every request myself.

Free, 20 minutes, no code access. For apps with paying users.