decision-analysis
Decision Analysis exposes assumptions, failure paths, and success conditions for high-stakes design choices. It uses premortem and backcast reasoning to rank options against constraints, reversibility, and evidence quality, then returns a risk-calibrated recommendation. The skill routes obligations and rationale to their authoritative destinations—RFC, ADR, Work Item, or verification—rather than creating artifacts itself.
Decision Analysis stress-tests design options using premortem and backcast reasoning to deliver risk-calibrated recommendations.
AI-generated summary based on this skill's SKILL.md
Decision gist · record as of 2026-07-27
Decision Analysis stress-tests design options using premortem and backcast reasoning to deliver risk-calibrated recommendations. Decision Analysis exposes assumptions, failure paths, and success conditions for high-stakes design choices. It uses premortem and backcast reasoning to rank options against constraints, reversibility, and evidence quality, then returns a risk-calibrated recommendation. The skill routes obligations and rationale to their authoritative destinations—RFC, ADR, Work Item, or verification—rather than creating artifacts itself.
Use it when
- Decision Analysis surfaces failure paths by working backward from each option's worst plausible outcome (premortem) and forward.
- Decision Analysis evaluates reversibility as part of its option ranking.
Verify before relying
Read SKILL.md below before installing (1 file). Open directory: indexed for reading, not audited.
Install
govctl-org/govctl/decision-analysis · repository language: Rust
Open directory. Skills are indexed for reading, not audited. Review a skill's body before installing it.
Frequently asked questions
AI-generated answers based on this skill's SKILL.md and metadata
How do I analyze design options before committing to a consequential choice?
Decision Analysis stress-tests your options using premortem and backcast reasoning. It exposes assumptions, failure paths, and success conditions for each alternative, then ranks them against constraints like reversibility, evidence quality, and governance fit. The skill returns a risk-calibrated recommendation aligned to your decision authority—whether that's an RFC, ADR, Work Item, or verification gate—without creating artifacts itself.
What could go wrong with this design option?
Decision Analysis surfaces failure paths by working backward from each option's worst plausible outcome (premortem) and forward from your success criteria (backcast). This exposes hidden assumptions about dependencies, capacity, and integration points. The skill identifies which failure modes are reversible, which carry high consequence, and what evidence would either validate or invalidate your choice before you lock it in.
How do I know if my design choice is reversible?
Decision Analysis evaluates reversibility as part of its option ranking. It assesses whether you can unwind each choice without cascading costs, and flags decisions that create lock-in or path dependency. Reversible choices carry lower risk and may justify faster decisions; irreversible ones warrant deeper analysis, more evidence, and higher governance scrutiny.
When should I do deeper analysis versus a quick comparison?
Decision Analysis determines analysis depth by weighing consequence, reversibility, and evidence quality. High-consequence, irreversible choices with weak evidence justify full premortem, backcast, and assumption validation. Lower-stakes or reversible decisions may warrant quick comparison only. The skill routes the rationale and next steps to the right decision authority so you know what depth is justified.
How does Decision Analysis compare alternatives before an ADR?
Decision Analysis ranks alternatives by stress-testing each against constraints, failure modes, and success conditions. It identifies which evidence would change the ranking or trigger a pivot, and calibrates risk to your governance context. Rather than writing the ADR itself, it routes the comparison, assumptions, and recommendation to your decision authority—enabling them to author a well-grounded record.
What assumptions and success conditions does Decision Analysis expose?
Decision Analysis uses premortem and backcast to surface assumptions about dependencies, capacity, team skill, vendor stability, and integration points. It maps success conditions—what must be true for each option to deliver value—and failure paths that would violate them. This exposure lets you validate assumptions early and identify which evidence matters most before committing.
SKILL.md
Rendered from the published skill. Quoted content, verbatim.
Decision Analysis
Expose assumptions, failure paths, success conditions, and option-changing evidence before a consequential design choice is recorded.
This is a reference skill used by discuss and adr-writer. It analyzes; it
does not create artifacts, mutate lifecycle state, write implementation, create
Work Items, or perform VCS operations.
When Analysis Helps
Use deeper analysis when plausible options have non-obvious trade-offs, the choice is expensive to reverse, consequences cross important boundaries, or a wrong assumption could create normative, compatibility, data, security, or operational risk.
Use a compact comparison for reversible, well-understood choices. Skip this skill when an existing normative RFC already determines the answer or when the task is a routine implementation choice with no durable architectural consequence.
Hard Stops
- Do not treat invented scenarios, unsupported probabilities, or model confidence as evidence.
- Do not
(truncated - see the full file via the links below)
File tree — 1 file
.claude/skills/decision-analysis/SKILL.md
Let your AI agent find skills like this
Example. Real query, live index.
You found this page by searching. An agent finds it by wishing: SkillFed indexes 56,283 agent skills by what they can do, searchable in plain language.
wish › “Stress-test design options with premortem and backcast before recording a consequential choice”
Give your agent the search over MCP, or paste the wish link into any chat. No install? Search from any chat →
Related skills
ADR Writer guides you through documenting architectural decisions by establishing the problem context, weighing real alternatives, explaining why one direction won, and recording both benefits and costs. It enforces boundaries between decision rationale and product obligations, keeping ADRs focused on justification rather than execution or RFC-level commitments.
discuss guides you through governance design conversations grounded in your repository's existing context. It helps identify constraints, compare design options, and produce durable artifacts like RFCs and ADRs that capture decisions and obligations without moving into implementation.
migrate helps you add govctl governance to an established project by examining existing evidence—documentation, code structure, VCS history, and configuration—to recover consequential decisions and specifications. It guides you through a discovery phase, presents candidates for backfill as Architecture Decision Records, RFCs, or Work Items, and executes only authorized changes in small coherent batches. The workflow preserves traceability, respects existing artifact state, and stops when evidence conflicts or authorization is unclear.
RFC Writer guides you through composing normative RFCs—product contracts with observable obligations, invariants, and compatibility rules. It enforces separation between specification prose and implementation details, ensures each clause is independently testable, and hands off lifecycle operations to dedicated governance tools. Use it to author the contract itself, not design rationale or execution scope.
gov delivers substantive code changes within your repository's governance framework, enforcing RFC and ADR authority while maintaining work-item traceability. It establishes current state, validates against normative specifications, and ensures completion evidence before closure.
This skill structures architecture decisions by enforcing a rigorous trade-off analysis: context, constraints, at least three viable options, and explicit consequences. It produces formal decision records (ADR/RFC/RFD) that capture both positive and negative outcomes, ensuring decisions remain auditable and reversible.
More skills commit (MIT) · detach (MIT)