Critical Thinking for GenAI Agent Skill

Interrogate model-generated text with eleven probes that test the output itself, because there is no author to walk back through the…

Context cost
5.3k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
3 files · 21.0 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/the author’s own terms
Last change
—v0.1
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Interrogate model-generated text with eleven probes that test the output itself, because there is no author to walk back through the reasoning. Use when the user says "is this AI answer any good", "did it make this up", "check what ChatGPT told me", "can I trust this", "verify this AI output", "hallucination", or pastes model output they are about to rely on. Also use when an answer earlier in this conversation turns out to be wrong, before correcting it in place.

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

productivity

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md5.5 kB · preview
--- name: critical-thinking-genai license: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ metadata: author: agilepainrelief.com version: '0.1' ---
10# Critical Thinking for GenAI
11Use this when the thing under examination came out of a model rather than out of the user.
12
13Critical Thinking assumes a person reached a conclusion and can be walked back through how they got there. On an LLM there was no route to walk back. Asking an LLM "what took you from the evidence to that?" generates a fresh block of text about a process that never occurred. The probes in references/probes.md test the output instead of asking the author.
14
15Where a probe says to check something outside the model, another GenAI chat is not outside. The second model generates its answers the same way the first one did, so two of them agreeing is not corroboration. It can still be useful as a search tool. Ask it for the evidence on all sides of a claim, then read the sources it names. The user draws their own conclusions.
16
17## Workflow
181. **Establish what came out of a model.**
19 Usually obvious from context, a pasted block of text, "Claude said", "ChatGPT told me", or an answer produced earlier in this conversation. When it isn't, ask. Do not assume a pasted argument is theirs.
20 Mixed cases are common: a model drafted it and the user now owns it. Run these probes on what the model contributed. What the user decided to keep is their reasoning, and belongs to the Critical Thinking skill.
21
222. **Offer the fresh conversation first, and say so explicitly.**
23 The most effective and least used tactic available, and most users do not know it is an option. Raise it before working through any other probe, and again whenever the thread has been carrying a wrong turn. See references/probes.md, "Start A Fresh Conversation Rather Than Correcting This One".
24
253. **Never ask the model why it got something wrong.**
26 The question produces an invented cause, and leaves the mistake, the wrong answer and the fake reason all sitting in the thread for every later reply to re-read. Rewrite the prompt and start again instead.
27
284. **Choose probes by what being wrong would cost. How confident the answer sounds tells you nothing.**
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md934 words
Files3
LicenceCC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈160
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
5,090
on trigger
The instruction body and 2 supporting files, read only when the skill fires.
2.6%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 26% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

5.3k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

3 files, 21.0 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md5.5 kB
  • README.md7.7 kB
  • references/probes.md7.8 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 3 files you can review in full before installing. The licence the author declares covers the templates and examples as well as the instructions.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Critical Thinking for GenAI · 5.3k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/critical-thinking-for-genai" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai ] || { mv .claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/critical-thinking-for-genai" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add mlevison/critical-thinking-for-genai

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/critical-thinking-for-genai" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/critical-thinking-for-genai" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/critical-thinking-for-genai/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where. It appears as critical-thinking-genai in Gemini CLI, Codex, Copilot and Grok (its own name); Claude Code lists it by the folder name, critical-thinking-for-genai.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Version0.1
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencemlevison/critical-thinking-for-genai

Versions

v0.1 is what is on the shelf; no release here carries a date. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

v0.1
  • No earlier releases have been published to the marketplace.
Pinning

The install command always fetches the release that is current the day you run it — v0.1 today — and cannot ask for an earlier one. The copy on your disk does not change until you run it again.

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Who wrote it

ML
mlevison

Publishes on mcprush.

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