39 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
39 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
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# Adversarial Consulting Pattern
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Two-turn technique for higher-quality analysis from Claude Opus. Proven effective for architecture decisions, prompt engineering, and design trade-offs.
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## Pattern
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**Turn 1:** Ask for advice on the problem. Frame it neutrally — "I need your advice on X."
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**Turn 2:** Ask Claude to play devil's advocate against its own Turn 1 advice. Require web searches to ground the pushback. Frame: "Push back on your own advice. Do web searches first. Be genuinely adversarial — if your previous answer was wrong, say so."
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## Why It Works
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- Claude's first answer is often confident but incomplete — it picks a position and argues for it
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- The adversarial prompt forces it to find counter-evidence via web search, surfacing trade-offs it glossed over
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- The second turn often partially reverses or qualifies the first, producing a more nuanced final position
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- Web search requirement prevents it from just inventing counter-arguments — they must be grounded
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## When To Use
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- Architecture decisions with real trade-offs
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- Prompt engineering (where to place rules, how to structure instructions)
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- Security/design reviews
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- Any decision where the first answer felt too clean
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## When NOT To Use
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- Simple factual questions (one turn is enough)
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- Time-sensitive queries where the extra turn isn't worth it
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- When Claude's first answer already acknowledged uncertainty and trade-offs
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## Example Session
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Session from 2026-07-02: "Where to add global conciseness instructions to reduce token use?"
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Turn 1: Claude recommended SOUL.md edit, argued token math favored it.
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Turn 2 (adversarial): Claude partially reversed on token math (user has local Ollama, no per-token pricing), conceded the 14-profile symlink risk, acknowledged compression threshold concern, and revised to: SOUL.md edit + SOUL_OVERRIDE.md mechanism + measurement.
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The adversarial turn produced a materially better recommendation than the first pass.
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