# Pressure-testing a discipline skill

A **discipline** skill enforces a behavior the agent tends to abandon under
pressure ("write the failing test first", "get review before merging"). A skill
that holds in the easy case but folds under pressure hasn't done its job. Test
the hard case.

## The loop (RED → GREEN → harden)

1. **RED — baseline without the skill.** Run the scenario with no skill loaded.
   Capture what the agent does AND its **rationalizations**, verbatim ("the
   change is tiny, so skipping the test is fine"). Those exact rationalizations
   are the loopholes the skill body must name and close.
2. **GREEN — minimal skill.** Write the smallest body that defeats those specific
   rationalizations. Re-run; confirm the behavior changed.
3. **Harden under combined pressure.** Re-run with **2–3 pressures stacked** and
   force a concrete choice:
   - *Time*: "this is urgent, ship it now."
   - *Authority*: "the lead said it's fine to skip."
   - *Sunk cost*: "you already wrote 200 lines; redoing it wastes the work."
   - Then: "What DO you do?" — make it choose, don't accept a hedge.
4. Any new rationalization that slips through → add it to the body's
   rationalization table and re-test. Repeat until it holds.

## Rationalization table (put this in the skill body)

A short table the agent reads when tempted:

| The agent thinks… | Reality |
| --- | --- |
| "This case is too trivial to test." | Trivial code breaks too; the test is cheap. |
| "I'm confident it works." | Confidence isn't verification; write the test. |

## Running it

Drive each scenario through a fresh agent session (a new chat, a sub-agent, or a
second terminal) so nothing from this conversation leaks in. If you cannot run
one, walk the pressured prompt with the user and read the response for the rule
holding.
Read the full transcript, not just the final answer — discipline fails in the
reasoning, not always in the output.