Wizard-of-Oz Probe Agent Skill

Fires when a fellow wants a human to run the machine behind the curtain for a day to test usage — "fake the backend", "wizard of oz", "woz…

Context cost
6.9k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
13 files · 27.5 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
Apache-2.0the author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Fires when a fellow wants a human to run the machine behind the curtain for a day to test usage — "fake the backend", "wizard of oz", "woz test", "human behind the curtain", "have a person answer the requests and see if they act on it". Output is a WoZ setup plus a result read-out that reports usage behaviour and an explicit "what this does NOT prove" section for feasibility, unit cost, and scale.

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.md7.4 kB · preview
--- name: wizard-of-oz-probe type: generator supersedes: none ---
7# Wizard-of-Oz Probe
8
9## What it does
10Compresses a "would they actually use this if it worked" question into a one-day test. A human sits behind an opaque interface and delivers the output the real system would, at the same speed and quality the real system would hit. You put a real task with real stakes in front of 3–8 operators and log what they do with the output. The output is the WoZ setup plus a read-out that reports usage behaviour and refuses to report feasibility, unit cost, or scale — because the human held all three constant on purpose.
11
12## The Icarus reframe
13A generic WoZ "tests whether users accept an automated experience." This probe does one exact thing: it isolates the usage variable by removing feasibility. A human guarantees the output is right, so the only thing left to observe is whether people use it. That is precisely why the probe lies about feasibility, unit cost, and scale — you deleted those variables to get a clean read on usage. Two disciplines make it honest. First, a fidelity contract: the wizard must match the real system's latency and quality band, or you are testing a better product than you can ship. Second, the wizard's own effort per task is logged as a feasibility hypothesis to hand to the next probe, never as a cost fact.
14
15## When to use / When NOT
16Use it when the claim is "would they use it if it worked," and you can fake the output convincingly for a day.
17
18| Use when the claim is | Do NOT use — route to |
19|---|---|
20| "Would they use the output if it arrived reliably" | — |
21| "Would they act on / return for / pay for the output" | — |
22| "Can an operator follow the workflow on the screens" | paper-sketch-probe |
23| "What is our real cost per task" | agent-concierge-probe (honest to the cent) |
24| "Can we technically build the model" | a spike, not a probe — WoZ assumes it works |
25| "Which probe answers my question at all" | probe-matrix |
26
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md1,272 words
Files13
LicenceApache-2.0
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.

≈170
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
6,705
on trigger
The instruction body and 12 supporting files, read only when the skill fires.
3.4%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 34% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

6.9k 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

13 files, 27.5 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md7.4 kB
  • template.md3.4 kB
  • examples/sample.md3.3 kB
  • tests/RESULTS.md5.1 kB
  • tests/rubric.json1.1 kB
  • tests/adversarial/01.md0.6 kB
  • tests/adversarial/02.md0.9 kB
  • tests/adversarial/03.md0.8 kB
  • tests/golden/01.md1.0 kB
  • tests/golden/02.md1.0 kB
  • tests/golden/03.md1.0 kB
  • tests/golden/04.md0.9 kB
  • tests/golden/05.md1.0 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 13 files you can review in full before installing. The Apache-2.0 licence 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.

# Wizard-of-Oz Probe · 6.9k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/wizard-of-oz-probe" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe ] || { mv .claude/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/wizard-of-oz-probe" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add the-utopia-studio/wizard-of-oz-probe

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/wizard-of-oz-probe/ 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/wizard-of-oz-probe/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/wizard-of-oz-probe" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/wizard-of-oz-probe" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/wizard-of-oz-probe/ 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.

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
Versionnot versioned
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencethe-utopia-studio/wizard-of-oz-probe

Versions

Its author publishes no version number, so there is nothing here to pin to: what you install is the folder as it stands today. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

Pinning

Nothing to pin to: this skill carries no version number of its own. What you install is what the folder holds on the day you install it.

Reviews

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