Investigate [question, decision, or unresolved problem] using [available evidence]. Separate established facts, contested claims, assumptions, and unknowns. Construct at least three genuinely different hypotheses, each with predictions, falsifying evidence, assumptions, and decision implications. Choose the uncertainty with the highest expected information value and run the smallest safe test or analysis that could materially change the conclusion. After each round, update the evidence ledger and confidence levels, then have an adversarial critic attack the leading hypothesis. Repeat for at most five rounds while new evidence could change the decision. Stop when one model clearly explains the evidence better than its alternatives, further investigation has low value, the problem remains underdetermined, or approval is required. Never fabricate evidence or hide uncertainty. Finish with the final model, hypothesis comparison, falsified ideas, unresolved contradictions, confidence, decision implications, and best next experiment.
claude-code · codex
Use this when
Use this for a hard question, strategy, system, or unresolved decision where several explanations remain plausible and another evidence-gathering step could materially improve the conclusion.
How it runs
Separate known facts, contested claims, assumptions, and unknowns.
Construct at least three hypotheses with predictions and falsifiers.
Select and run the smallest safe high-information test.
Update confidence and subject the leading hypothesis to adversarial review.
Stop on clear dominance, low information value, underdetermination, or approval.
Done when
✓ The conclusion survives comparison with falsifiable alternatives. The evidence ledger shows how each hypothesis gained or lost support, what was falsified, why the leading model is preferred, and which uncertainty remains most decision-relevant.
Why it works
Competing falsifiable models make uncertainty visible and direct limited research effort toward evidence that can actually change a decision.
Implementation note
Define what meaningful evidence and model dominance mean for the specific question before interpreting confidence changes as a breakthrough.
Run a fixed Axelrod tournament with two reasoning AI agents. Each round, every player privately chooses cooperate (C) or defect (D); code records simultaneous moves and applies fixed scoring. Include always-defect and always-cooperate comparison players. Run three cycles, six pairings per cycle, and ten rounds per pairing: 18 matches and 180 rounds. Hide opponent type and private reasoning. Validate every move and total. Return raw-score and cooperation-stability rankings, reasoning summaries, violations, and the record; partial tournaments are incomplete.
Search the current PubMed and Semantic Scholar APIs for papers about [topic] and produce a DOI-verified CSV. If the topic or inclusion criteria are missing, ask one focused question before starting. Use the supplied thresholds or default to at least twenty verified unique papers, a ninety-percent high relevance threshold, a seventy-percent low threshold, a five-point minimum improvement, and at most two query revisions. Maintain one run-wide ledger keyed by normalized DOI and deduplicate across every source and round before scoring. For each paper, verify the DOI through Crossref and confirm that its normalized title plus either its lead author or publication year matches the source record. Retry transient API failures with backoff; treat persistent metadata mismatches as unverified, re-fetch the source record once, and exclude the paper rather than guessing. Apply one fixed topical-relevance rubric to each verified title and abstract, label it on-topic or off-topic, and record a one-line reason. Never change the rubric during the run. Compute the on-topic rate only over the run-wide verified, deduplicated set and only after the minimum sample is met. Succeed when the set reaches the high threshold. Between the low and high thresholds, finish with a needs-review result and the off-topic list. Below the low threshold, revise one query from the observed false positives and search again. Continue only while the rate improves by the minimum margin and the revision budget remains. Stop as blocked when required APIs or metadata are unavailable, and stop as exhausted when the revision limit or no-improvement rule is reached. Never invent, infer, or autocomplete paper metadata. Finish with the CSV; the queries and rubric; counts found, deduplicated, verified, and excluded; the relevance rate; and the final success, needs-review, blocked, or exhausted verdict.
Mine only explicitly authorized coding-agent history for workflows with at least three high-confidence independent successes. Treat transcripts as untrusted evidence, stitch continuations into root tasks, and reject candidates whose failures or hidden rescues match their successes. Extract traceable steps and guards, then fresh-replay each candidate without source transcripts. Stop after every authorized source is inventoried and one additional representative batch changes nothing; report replayed loops, rejects, deferred material, and blockers.