assumptions

Manage the assumption registry — track, verify, and query assumptions about external dependencies and system behavior. Prevents costly rediscovery of known failures.

SKILL.md

GitHub

Manage assumptions: $ARGUMENTS

Commands

Parse the first word of $ARGUMENTS to determine the command:

list — Show all tracked assumptions

  1. Read all .assumptions/*.jsonl files
  2. Parse each line as a JSON record
  3. Display sorted by confidence (lowest first) or staleness (oldest verification first)
  4. Format as a table: ID | Category | Claim | Confidence | Last Verified | Status

add — Register a new assumption

Parse remaining arguments for: --category, --claim, --evidence, --source

Create a new assumption record in .assumptions/registry.jsonl:

{
  "id": "<category>-<short-slug>",
  "category": "<api|dependency|behavior|environment|tooling>",
  "claim": "<what we assume to be true>",
  "evidence": "<what supports this assumption>",
  "source": "<where this was discovered>",
  "confidence": 0.8,
  "created": "<ISO 8601>",
  "last_verified": "<ISO 8601>",
  "verification_method": "<how to test this>",
  "failure_history": [],
  "status": "active",
  "blast_radius": "<what breaks if this assumption is wrong>"
}

verify — Re-verify an assumption

  1. Read the assumption record by ID
  2. Execute the verification method (may involve web search, API calls, or code checks)
  3. Update last_verified timestamp and confidence score
  4. If verification fails, add to failure_history and reduce confidence
  5. If confidence drops below 0.3, mark status as suspect and warn

stale — Show assumptions that need re-verification

  1. Read all assumption records
  2. Filter to those where last_verified is more than 14 days ago
  3. Sort by blast_radius (highest first)
  4. Display with suggested verification actions

seed — Seed registry from MEMORY.md gotchas

  1. Read MEMORY.md
  2. Extract entries from "Gotchas", "Known Bugs", and "MCP Knowledge API Gotchas" sections
  3. For each entry, create an assumption record with:
    • category: inferred from content (api, dependency, behavior, etc.)
    • claim: the gotcha statement
    • evidence: "Discovered empirically" + date from MEMORY.md
    • confidence: 0.9 (verified by experience)
    • verification_method: suggested test

Schema

Each assumption record:

Field Type Required Description
id string yes Unique identifier (category-slug format)
category enum yes api, dependency, behavior, environment, tooling
claim string yes What we assume to be true
evidence string yes What supports this claim
source string yes Where this was discovered (session, test, docs)
confidence float yes 0.0 to 1.0 confidence score
created string yes ISO 8601 creation timestamp
last_verified string yes ISO 8601 last verification timestamp
verification_method string no How to re-test this assumption
failure_history array no Past verification failures with timestamps and details
status enum yes active, suspect, retired, verified
blast_radius string no What breaks if this assumption is wrong
dependencies array no Other assumptions this depends on

Output

Always end with a summary:

## Assumption Registry Status

Total: {N} assumptions
Active: {N} | Suspect: {N} | Retired: {N}
Stale (>14 days): {N}
Highest blast radius unverified: {assumption_id}