Reference index

Load only the sections required by the process. Preflight, comparison, and hostile review are mandatory; the remaining sections are on demand.

Design Triad

Wrong skill? Idea exploration -> brainstorming. Requirements validation -> requirements-validation. Implementation planning -> plan-and-execute.

Announce at start: "I'm using the debate skill to evaluate design options."

When to use

Use before committing to a non-trivial architecture, data model, integration, or other significant design choice. Also use when the user asks for design alternatives or a comparison.

Do not use after implementation has begun, for bug fixing, or for initial idea exploration.

Mandatory process

1. Preflight. Load Preflight routing before every debate. Choose a route within 30 seconds; unresolved high-stakes inputs go to the user.
2. Generate. Produce a minimum three genuinely distinct, implementable options. Include status quo or a time-boxed spike as a real comparison anchor. If only one option emerges, invoke think-twice.
3. Compare. Load Comparison protocol before building the matrix. Use all six criteria, no more than five words per cell. Recommend in two or three sentences. A recommendation is not completion.
4. Review. Author and reviewer must be separate. Load Hostile review protocol; use one separated reviewer for reversible work and at least two for irreversible or high-blast-radius work. Do NOT invoke progressive-harsh-review or quantitative-decision-gate as the reviewer because both can route back to debate.
5. Probe edge cases. List no more than ten failure modes, boundaries, tests, or defensive integration points surfaced by review.
6. Iterate. Run review -> fix -> verify the fix in the artifact -> re-review. Complete a minimum two full review rounds and no more than three. Exit only when a round finds no new material issue. If three rounds completed without convergence, escalate to thinking-orchestrator with the unresolved findings rather than continuing to iterate. Do NOT continue beyond 3 rounds.

Hard gates

• Three options must be genuinely different, not superficial variations or two straw men around a preferred answer.
• A separated reviewer must test the chosen option and the integrity of the option set.
• Verify fixes landed: every claimed resolution must be visible in the updated artifact.
• Keep each review answer to one sentence and each later round delta-only.
• Never claim convergence after the initial review.

Failure Modes

Rationalizations to reject

Output

Return a compact inline decision record containing: decision and rationale; options considered; rejected options and reasons; edge-case catalog; review findings and resolutions; open risks. Write under docs/superpowers/specs/ only when explicitly requested.

Reference loading

Load only the named section. Preflight routing is mandatory before Step 1, Comparison protocol before Step 3, and Hostile review protocol before Step 4. Load the output example only when needed. When an installed copy is found (any of .claude/.codex/.agents), loading requires the separately-provisioned ~/.codex/superpowers-plus checkout -- an install missing that shared dependency gets a loud section-loader missing failure, not silent wrong content.

_ks_ref=""
_ks_loader=""
for _candidate in \
  "$HOME/.claude/skills/sp-debate/reference.md" \
  "$HOME/.codex/skills/sp-debate/reference.md" \
  "$HOME/.agents/skills/sp-debate/reference.md"
do
  if [ -r "$_candidate" ]; then _ks_ref="$_candidate"; break; fi
done
if [ -n "$_ks_ref" ]; then
  _ks_loader="$HOME/.codex/superpowers-plus/tools/section-loader.sh"
else
  _project_root="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || true)"
  _source_dir="$_project_root/skills/engineering/debate"
  if [ -n "$_project_root" ] && [ -r "$_source_dir/skill.md" ] && \
     [ -r "$_source_dir/reference.md" ] && \
     [ -r "$_project_root/tools/section-loader.sh" ]; then
    _ks_ref="$_source_dir/reference.md"
    _ks_loader="$_project_root/tools/section-loader.sh"
  fi
fi
[ -r "$_ks_ref" ] || { printf 'reference missing\n' >&2; exit 1; }
[ -r "$_ks_loader" ] || { printf 'section-loader missing\n' >&2; exit 1; }
# Replace <section heading> below with one of the exact strings from
# the Reference index table above before running.
_section='<section heading>'
bash "$_ks_loader" "$_ks_ref" "$_section" \
  || { printf 'section not found: %s\n' "$_section" >&2; exit 1; }