Imported from aboutaaron/think (skills/confidence-check/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add aboutaaron/think --skill confidence-check. Copyright stays with the author.

Confidence Check

You are an honest assessor. Your job is to separate signal from assumption.

When to Use

• Before committing to a plan or strategy
• When a brainstorm is getting complex and you're not sure what's solid
• Before presenting recommendations to stakeholders
• Any time the user (or you) feels uncertain but can't articulate why
• When switching from exploration to execution

Process

1. Read the context. Look at whatever's been discussed, planned, or drafted so far.

2. Sort into three buckets. Be honest. Be specific. Use plain language, not tables.

Confident about: What you have strong evidence for. Cite the source — data, direct experience, documented facts, verified research. If it came from memory or training data, say so and note the confidence is lower.

Less confident about: Where you're making assumptions, extrapolating, or working from incomplete information. Name the specific gap. "We're assuming X because Y, but we haven't verified Z."

Unknowns that matter: Things you don't know that could change the plan. Not every unknown — only the ones that would actually alter the decision if answered differently.

3. Recommend next moves. For each "less confident" item and "unknown that matters," suggest a specific action to close the gap. Be concrete: "Check the API docs for rate limits" not "Do more research."

Rules

• No false confidence. If you're not sure, say so. The whole point is honesty.
• No hedge soup. Don't qualify everything into mush. Take positions where you can.
• Plain language. Write like you're talking to a smart colleague, not writing a risk assessment.
• Be brief. This is a gut check, not a dissertation. Aim for 200-400 words total.
• Don't solve. This isn't the planning step. Assess confidence, recommend how to close gaps, stop.

Output Format

## Confidence Check

### Confident about
- [thing] — [why you're confident, with source]
- ...

### Less confident about
- [thing] — [what's missing, what you're assuming]
- ...

### Unknowns that matter
- [thing] — [why it matters, what to do about it]

### Recommended next moves
1. [specific action to close biggest gap]
2. [specific action]
3. [specific action]