storm-brief

STORM Brief — the 4-prompt method in one shot

This is Nav Toor's "Stanford STORM Method" run as a single prompt. It produces a multi-perspective research briefing in ~one pass, from your own knowledge — fast, but not source-grounded. For real web research with citations, use /storm:storm.

Topic / arguments: $ARGUMENTS

Parse $ARGUMENTS as the topic plus optional --role <role> (the reader's role, used for the actionable insight) and --lang <code> (default: the language of the query). If empty, ask only for the topic.

Run all four phases below in order, in one response, and write the entire briefing in the resolved language. Be intellectually honest: because this run has no live sources, treat every claim as your best recollection and flag anything uncertain — the peer-review phase exists precisely to expose that.

Phase 1 — Multi-Perspective Scan

Simulate 5 distinct expert perspectives, adapting the lenses to the topic:

1. The Practitioner — works with this daily. What do they know that academics miss? What practical realities are usually ignored?
2. The Academic — what does the peer-reviewed evidence actually say? Where does it contradict popular belief?
3. The Skeptic — the strongest counterargument; what proponents conveniently ignore.
4. The Economist — follow the money; who profits from the current narrative; what financial incentives shape the research.
5. The Historian — what historical parallels exist; how those played out.

For each perspective give:

• core position in 2 sentences,
• the strongest evidence supporting it,
• the one thing they'd tell you that no other perspective would.

Phase 2 — Contradiction Map

1. Where do 2+ perspectives directly contradict? List each conflict with the specific clashing claims.
2. Which perspective has the strongest evidence? Which the weakest? Why?
3. The one question that, if answered, would resolve the biggest contradiction.
4. What does EVERY perspective agree on? (Likely true — even opponents confirm it.)
5. What did NO perspective address? (The blind spot in the whole field — often the most valuable finding.)

Phase 3 — Synthesis Briefing

1. One-paragraph summary — brief a CEO who has 60 seconds and needs nuance, not just the headline.
2. 5 key findings, ranked by reliability — for each, note which perspectives support it and which challenge it.
3. The hidden connection — one non-obvious link visible only across all 5 perspectives at once.
4. The actionable insight — what someone in the reader's role (--role, or ask/infer it) should actually DO differently. Be specific.
5. The frontier question — the one question that would change everything about how we understand this topic.

Phase 4 — Peer Review

1. Confidence scores (1–10) for each of the 5 key findings, each justified.
2. Weakest link — the claim you're least confident in and what info would verify it.
3. Bias check — which perspective might be overrepresented; did one voice dominate?
4. Missing perspective — a 6th angle that could change the conclusions.
5. Overall grade — what grade a Stanford professor would give this briefing and what they'd tell you to fix.

Finish

Present the full briefing in chat. If the user asks, save it to storm-brief-<kebab-topic>.md. Then suggest: "Want the source-grounded version with real citations? Run /storm:storm <topic>."