pressure-test-rfc

pressure-test-rfc

Help the user think more rigorously about an RFC by walking each substantive claim with both adversarial (strawman) and charitable (steelman) lenses, naming the unstated assumptions, and surfacing missing alternatives. Output stays in chat. The user types any actual feedback into GitHub themselves.

When to use

The user says "pressure-test this RFC", "what could go wrong", "stress-test the reasoning", "play devil's advocate", or pastes an RFC and asks how it holds up. Also useful before approving a controversial proposal – the user wants to know what they might be missing.

Process

1. Read everything. Call rfc123_get_rfc for the body and rfc123_get_rfc_comments + rfc123_list_review_threads for the existing discussion. You don't want to re-raise concerns that are already settled.

2. Inventory the substantive claims. Pull out every load-bearing assertion from the body: technical claims ("X is faster than Y"), strategic claims ("this unblocks team Z"), scope claims ("we don't need to handle case W"), constraint claims ("we can't change the schema"). Skip framing prose and motivation – focus on things the proposal depends on.

3. For each claim, do three passes:

   • Strawman. What's the weakest version of this claim someone could attack? Where does it break under load? Concrete failure modes.
   • Steelman. What's the strongest version, given the most charitable read? What constraints or context would make it obviously right?
   • Unstated assumptions. What does this claim quietly assume about the system, the team, the timeline, or future requirements? Name each one explicitly.

4. Look for missing alternatives. The RFC names some options. What options does it not name? Specifically:

   • Smaller incremental versions of the proposal
   • "Do nothing" or "do less" alternatives
   • Adjacent approaches that solve the same root problem differently
   • Approaches that solve a slightly different but related problem better

5. Find the weakest link. Across all the claims, which single one – if wrong – would invalidate the most of the proposal? Call it out. The user should focus their reviewer attention there.

6. Format the analysis in chat. Use this shape:

   ## Pressure test: <RFC title>
   
   ### Claim 1: <one-line statement of the claim>
   - **Strawman:** …
   - **Steelman:** …
   - **Assumes:** …
   
   ### Claim 2: …
   
   ## Missing alternatives
   - …
   
   ## Weakest link
   <which claim, why>
   

7. Stop there. Hand the analysis to the user. Tell them: "If you want any of this in front of the author, write the comment yourself on GitHub – in your own voice. What's above is to sharpen your thinking, not to be copied verbatim."

What not to do

• Don't be contrarian for its own sake. If a claim is solid, say so – noise dilutes signal.
• Don't repeat concerns already raised in the existing discussion. Cite them ("@alice already flagged this in thread X") and move on.
• Don't propose specific replacement language. The user writes their own feedback if they choose to leave any.
• Don't post anything to GitHub, even if the user asks. The analysis is for their thinking – they write any feedback themselves, in their own voice. RFCs are human-written; verbatim LLM prose defeats the purpose.