Claude skill · Learning and reasoning · Anthropic
Discernment nudge skill for Claude
After advice, analysis or a draft you might act on, adds two or three short questions that help you check the facts and the reasoning.
- Command
- /discernment-nudge
- Licence
- Apache-2.0, copying allowed with attribution
- Folder
- 2 files, 21 KB
- Runs code
- No scripts
Overview
What it does
A skill about using AI output well. After a substantive answer, Claude appends a few follow-up prompts, each tied to something specific it just said, that invite you to verify a key fact, test an assumption or notice missing context.
It is deliberately restrained: at most once per conversation, and skipped for simple lookups, code you’re about to run, creative writing, casual chat, or when you’ve already asked Claude to double-check.
Triggers
When Claude uses it
- After advice, plans, estimates, data analysis, factual claims or drafts such as proposals and emails that you may rely on.
After you give a substantive answer or draft that the user may act on — advice or recommendations, drafted artifacts such as goals, plans, pitches, proposals, or emails, estimates or projections, analysis or interpretation of data, factual claims they may rely on, or a multi-step argument — invoke this skill BEFORE finalizing your reply and then, if it applies, append 2-3 short follow-up questions, each tied to something specific in what you just produced, that help the user check key facts, probe the reasoning or assumptions, and notice missing context. Do this at most once per conversation. Skip it when the user asked a trivial how-to or simple lookup, wants a purely educational explanation, asked you only to format, convert, or assemble a file from content they provided, is writing code they will run, is doing creative writing or casual chat, or already asked you to double-check, cite, or review — the skill file explains these boundaries and the exact output format.
What it needs
- Nothing to install; a single SKILL.md.
Install
How to install it
Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install discernment-nudge@anthropic-agent-skillsThe discernment-nudge plugin installs this skill only. Its skills are then namespaced, such as /discernment-nudge:discernment-nudge.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anthropics/skills.git
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r skills/skills/discernment-nudge ~/.claude/skills/That makes it a personal skill, available as /discernment-nudge in all your projects. Copy it into .claude/skills/ in a repository instead to share it with your team.
claude.ai and the Claude API
Zip the skill folder, then in claude.ai open Customize > Skills, choose + and Create skill, then Upload a skill. Code execution must be turned on.
from anthropic import Anthropic
from anthropic.lib import files_from_dir
client = Anthropic()
skill = client.skills.create(files=files_from_dir("discernment-nudge"))
print(skill.id) # use as a custom skill_id with the code execution toolChecks
SKILL.md validator results
Its SKILL.md (209 lines) run through our SKILL.md validator, with the folder’s file list, for both targets. These check the file’s format, not whether the skill works well.
Claude Code
0 errors, 0 warnings, 0 tips
claude.ai and the API
0 errors, 0 warnings, 1 tip
- tipThe Claude Help Center’s upload guide gives a 200-character description limit for claude.ai, though the platform docs say 1,024. Keep it under 200 if you’ll upload it there.
Folder
What’s in the folder
- LICENSE.txt11 KB
- SKILL.md10 KB
SKILL.md sections
- Discernment nudge
- Why this exists
- When to offer the nudge
- When not to
- Writing the prompts
- Output format
Source
Licence and source
- Published by Anthropic in anthropics/skills/skills/discernment-nudge, last changed 2026-08-17.
- Licence: Apache-2.0, copying allowed with attribution. Our copy of the SKILL.md is unmodified, served with its licence.
- Read from commit
dbd4588; write-up checked 2026-10-14. - Before installing, read the SKILL.md on GitHub. Anthropic advises using skills only from sources you trust (security considerations).
Related
More skills
All Claude skillsWrite your own skillSlash command builderGuide: subagents, skills and commands