Steel-Manning

Steel-Manning is an AI Engineering skill for Claude Code, published by tjboudreaux in cc-thinking-skills.

969 stars133 forkson tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsAdded 2026/08/21+1% in starsRepository updated 2026/08/07

agent-skillsai-toolsanthropicclaudeclaude-codecritical-thinkingdecision-makingfirst-principlesmental-modelsproblem-solvingsystems-thinking

Install in seconds

Install Steel-Manning

Copy Steel-Manning into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills/tree/main/skills/thinking-steel-manning ~/.claude/skills/thinking-steel-manning

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: skills/thinking-steel-manning/SKILL.md in tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/thinking-steel-manning
Collection: One of 25 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: AI Engineering — 2451 skills

What Steel-Manning does

Steel-Manning builds the strongest faithful case against a proposal before you accept or reject it. Use it in design reviews or decisions where trade-offs matter and you want agreement conditions before updating or reaffirming.

Steel-Manning is cataloged under AI Engineering on DirSkills. Steel-Manning comes from a repository tagged agent-skills, ai-tools, anthropic, claude and claude-code.

Documentation

README

Excerpt

Steel-Manning

Core rule: Engage the best form of the opposing case, not a weak one. If your position survives that, reaffirm; if not, update.

When to Use

About to reject a proposal, design, or alternative approach.
Inclined to agree with the user/plan and risk sycophancy — construct the best case against first.
Design review, architecture debate, or conflict where trade-offs are real.
Validating your own preferred decision before locking it (strongest-countercase check).

When NOT to Use

This is the opening of the README. Read the full README on GitHub.

Frequently asked about Steel-Manning

What else does tjboudreaux publish alongside Steel-Manning?
Steel-Manning is one of 25 skills that DirSkills catalogs from tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include Bounded Rationality, Circle Of Competence and Effectuation. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way Steel-Manning does, and is maintained by tjboudreaux in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills page.
How does Steel-Manning compare to other AI Engineering skills?
Steel-Manning ranks #1407 by stars among the 2451 AI Engineering skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Architecture Decision Records, AI-First Engineering and Agentic OS. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of Steel-Manning against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.