
Red Team
FreeStress-test your ideas with adversarial analysis.
Free Β· Opens the source repo
What Red Team does
The Red Team skill is designed for rigorous adversarial analysis of ideas, strategies, and plans. It breaks down arguments into atomic claims and deploys multiple expert agents to stress-test each one. By simulating various perspectives, including engineers, architects, and pentesters, the skill identifies weaknesses before they can manifest in real-world scenarios. The output includes a steelman version of the argument alongside the strongest counter-argument, providing a comprehensive view of potential flaws.
This skill addresses a common problem: individuals often become overly attached to their own plans, leading to blind spots that can result in failure when those plans are executed. By employing the Red Team skill, users can proactively surface these weaknesses through a structured attack on their arguments, ensuring that they are thoroughly vetted before implementation. The skill emphasizes constructive feedback, aiming to strengthen ideas rather than simply dismantle them.
Red Team is particularly useful in high-stakes environments where decision-making is critical, such as business strategy sessions or project planning meetings. It can be invoked to challenge proposals, validate new content, or simply to play devil's advocate. The skill operates through two primary workflows: Parallel Analysis, which stress-tests existing content, and Adversarial Validation, which generates new ideas through competition among proposals.
Overall, the Red Team skill is an essential tool for anyone looking to rigorously evaluate their ideas and strategies, ensuring they are robust enough to withstand scrutiny and perform effectively in practice.
When to use it
Use this skill when you need to critically evaluate ideas, strategies, or proposals by simulating adversarial perspectives.
When not to use it
This skill is not suitable for collaborative discussions aimed at finding consensus or the best path forward.
What you can build with it
Evaluate a Business Proposal
Invoke the skill to critically assess a business strategy, identifying potential flaws before presentation to stakeholders.
Stress-Test a Technical Plan
Use the skill to break down a technical architecture proposal and surface weaknesses that could lead to implementation issues.
Generate Competing Ideas
Run adversarial validation to synthesize the best solution from competing proposals in a project brainstorming session.
How to install Red Team
View source1. Install with the skills CLI
npx skills add danielmiessler/lifeos/RedTeam --agent claude-code2. Or install it manually
Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.
Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs
Inside SKILL.md
Written by danielmiesslerCustomization
Before executing, check for user customizations at:
~/.claude/LIFEOS/USER/CUSTOMIZATIONS/SKILLS/RedTeam/
If this directory exists, load and apply any PREFERENCES.md, configurations, or resources found there. These override default behavior. If the directory does not exist, proceed with skill defaults.
π¨ MANDATORY: Voice Notification (REQUIRED BEFORE ANY ACTION)
You MUST send this notification BEFORE doing anything else when this skill is invoked.
-
Send voice notification:
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:31337/notify \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"message": "Running the WORKFLOWNAME workflow in the RedTeam skill to ACTION"}' \ > /dev/null 2>&1 & -
Output text notification:
Running the **WorkflowName** workflow in the **RedTeam** skill to ACTION...
This is not optional. Execute this curl command immediately upon skill invocation.
RedTeam Skill
What It Does
Attacks ideas, strategies, and plans to find their weak points before reality does. It breaks an argument into atomic claims, deploys many parallel expert agents (engineers, architects, pentesters, interns) to stress-test each one, then synthesizes the findings into a steelman of the argument plus the strongest counter-argument against it.
The Problem
People fall in love with their own plans. Once you've committed to an idea, your brain hunts for reasons it works and skips past the reasons it doesn't β and the people around you are often too polite or too aligned to push hard. So flawed strategies sail through unchallenged until they fail in production, in the market, or in the meeting where someone finally asks the hard question. This skill is the hard question, run many ways at once: it attacks the argument deliberately and at volume so the weak points surface while they're still cheap to fix.
How It Works
Military-grade adversarial analysis using parallel agent deployment. It breaks arguments into atomic components, attacks from many expert perspectives (engineers, architects, pentesters, interns), synthesizes findings, and produces sharp counter-arguments alongside the steelman version of the case. Targets arguments, not network vulnerabilities.
Workflow Routing
Route to the appropriate workflow based on the request.
When executing a workflow, output this notification directly:
Running the **WorkflowName** workflow in the **RedTeam** skill to ACTION...
| Workflow | Trigger | File |
|---|---|---|
| ParallelAnalysis | Red team analysis (stress-test existing content) | Workflows/ParallelAnalysis.md |
| AdversarialValidation | Adversarial validation (produce new content via competition) | Workflows/AdversarialValidation.md |
Quick Reference
| Workflow | Purpose | Output |
|---|---|---|
| ParallelAnalysis | Stress-test existing content | Steelman + Counter-argument (8-points each) |
| AdversarialValidation | Produce new content via competition | Synthesized solution from competing proposals |
The deliverable (ParallelAnalysis): the strongest steelman of the argument and the strongest surviving counter-argument against it, each an 8-point story explanation (12-16 words per point), attacking real weaknesses not strawmen, ranked by severity.
Context Files
Philosophy.md- Core philosophy, success criteria, agent typesIntegration.md- Skill integration, FirstPrinciples usage, output format
Examples
Attack an architecture proposal:
User: "red team this microservices migration plan"
--> Workflows/ParallelAnalysis.md
--> Returns steelman + devastating counter-argument (8 points each)
Devil's advocate on a business decision:
User: "poke holes in my plan to raise prices 20%"
--> Workflows/ParallelAnalysis.md
--> Surfaces the ONE core issue that could collapse the plan
Adversarial validation for content:
User: "battle of bots - which approach is better for this feature?"
--> Workflows/AdversarialValidation.md
--> Synthesizes best solution from competing ideas
Last Updated: 2025-12-20
Gotchas
- RedTeam is for attacking IDEAS, not systems. This skill finds flaws in arguments, strategies, and plans β not network vulnerabilities.
- 32 adversarial agents generate volume β not all findings are equal. Rank by severity, discard noise.
- The goal is to strengthen, not destroy. Present weaknesses constructively with remediation paths.
Execution Log
After completing any workflow, append a single JSONL entry:
echo '{"ts":"'$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)'","skill":"RedTeam","workflow":"WORKFLOW_USED","input":"8_WORD_SUMMARY","status":"ok|error","duration_s":SECONDS}' >> ~/.claude/LIFEOS/MEMORY/SKILLS/execution.jsonl
Replace WORKFLOW_USED with the workflow executed, 8_WORD_SUMMARY with a brief input description, and SECONDS with approximate wall-clock time. Log status: "error" if the workflow failed.
Frequently asked questions about Red Team
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