From armor
Helps decide between two designs, APIs, schemas, or structures using gut-feel when tests and logic can't separate them. Uses a mirror-of-self question to bypass ego.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/armor:wholenessThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Some things have more life than others. Not because we like them — because of how
Some things have more life than others. Not because we like them — because of how they are built. The parts help each other. There is a center the thing is really about. Nothing is forced. You can feel it.
This is hard to read off a spec. We are trained to distrust the gut and defer to what is clever, what is new, what the team expects. So we use a trick. We ask which of the two things is a better picture of our own self. That question quiets the ego and the intellect, and lets a deeper, shared sense speak.
Its sibling
mirror-of-selfasks which one you would rather maintain. That is a useful question, but it is not this one. This asks which one has more life. Run both and see which serves you.
The question, asked of two things, one at a time:
Answer with the gut. The reasons come after, if at all.
Use the honest self, not the polished one. Picture the whole of you, flaws and all. The self you wish you were picks the impressive option. The self you are picks the one with life.
Get both whole in mind. Read each option until you can hold it at once — as one thing, not a list of parts. You cannot mirror what you have not absorbed.
Empty the ego. Set aside which is cleverer, which is newer, which you would be proud to have written, which the team is expecting. None of that is the question.
Ask the mirror, slowly. One option, then the other. Let the body answer before the mind explains.
Check for convergence. Ask another good engineer the same way, alone, with no pre-argument. If you both land on the same one, that agreement is the signal — it means you are reading something real, not a private taste. If you scatter, neither is clearly more alive yet, or an ego answered. Sit longer, or stop.
Then look for the why. The reasons are there: parts that strengthen each other, a center that holds, room to grow. But the feeling came first, and the feeling is the instrument. Do not let a clever reason talk you out of what you felt.
Alive — parts strengthen each other; each piece makes the others clearer. A strong center: one obvious thing the design is about. It feels settled, nothing fighting to get out. You could grow it without breaking it. Nothing arbitrary.
Dead — parts ignore or fight each other. No center; everything equally important, so nothing is. It feels forced; you can see where it was bent to fit. Brittle; growth means surgery. Arbitrary; "why is it like this" has no answer but "it just is."
One option is wrong, faster by a real margin, or required by a constraint. Facts win; the mirror is for genuine ties. And not for trivial, reversible picks — the felt sense is for things you will live inside.
Guides creation, editing, and verification of skills for AI coding agents using test-driven development with subagent scenarios. Use when authoring or debugging skills.
npx claudepluginhub markacianfrani/armor --plugin armor