Agent skill

AI Socratic Dialogue Designer

by GarethManning in GarethManning/education-agent-skills

Design a multi-round questioning sequence for interrogating AI chatbot answers, tracking how responses shift and distinguishing genuine updates from sycophantic capitulation.

Custom licenceAuto-check passedEducation

Install AI Socratic Dialogue Designer

skills CLI
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill ai-socratic-dialogue-designer -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills ai-socratic-dialogue-designer --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/ai-literacy/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer .claude/skills/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
ai-socratic-dialogue-designer
GitHub stars
840
Token cost
~6.5k tokens
SKILL.md length
2,296 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
160
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Custom licence

At a glance

Design a multi-round questioning sequence for interrogating AI chatbot answers, tracking how responses shift and distinguishing genuine updates from sycophantic capitulation.

  • Works in 4 steps: AI sycophancy rates vary by model and by… → The capitulation test is pedagogically… → Not all AI position changes are… → …
  • Teaching students to probe AI critically
  • SKILL.md covers What This Skill Does, Evidence Foundation, Input Schema and Prompt, plus 3 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

AI Socratic Dialogue Designer is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Design a multi-round questioning sequence for interrogating AI chatbot answers, tracking how responses shift and distinguishing genuine updates from sycophantic capitulation. Use when teaching students to probe AI critically.

Its SKILL.md is about 6.5k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Education, covering Tutoring and explanations. The repository describes itself as: 165 evidence-grounded AI skills for teachers, school leaders and EdTech builders—pedagogy, learning science, curriculum, assessment and regeneration. Claude, Codex and Hermes.

When your agent uses it

  • Teaching students to probe AI critically
  • Tasks that involve Tutoring and explanations

Example prompts

  • “/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer”

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. AI sycophancy rates vary by model and by conversation context. Perez et al. (2022) documented sycophancy in RLHF-trained models; different…
  2. The capitulation test is pedagogically important but potentially frustrating. Some students will find it disturbing that they can "trick"…
  3. Not all AI position changes are capitulation. Some Round 5 responses will be genuine acknowledgements of uncertainty that the AI should…
  4. AI-specific applications of Socratic pedagogy have limited direct empirical validation. The Socratic questioning evidence base (Paul &…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 6bbbce4. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

AI Socratic Dialogue Designer loads about 6.5k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 64 tokens; SKILL.md has 2,296 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~64
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~6.5k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

Its licence (Custom licence) doesn't allow us to republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 2,296 words (~6,514 tokens).

“Generates a multi-round questioning sequence specifically designed for interrogating AI chatbots — probing their answers through iterative questioning, tracking how their responses shift across rounds, and teaching students to distinguish genuine logical concession (the AI updates because a new argument…”

— opening of SKILL.md by GarethManning, Custom licence
name
ai-socratic-dialogue-designer
disable-model-invocation
false
user-invocable
true
effort
medium
skill_id
ai-literacy/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer
skill_name
AI Socratic Dialogue Designer
domain
ai-literacy
version
1.0
contributor
Gareth Manning
evidence_strength
moderate
evidence_sources
Paul & Elder (2008) — The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Walsh & Sattes (2005) — Quality Questioning: research-based practice to…

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/ai-literacy/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer of GarethManning/education-agent-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 6bbbce4

Compare with similar skills

AI Socratic Dialogue Designer next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

AI Socratic Dialogue Designer compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
AI Socratic Dialogue Designer this skillGarethManning/education-agent-skills840—~6.5kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
DeepTutor CLIHKUDS/DeepTutor41k—~2.8kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
AI Engineering Project Tutorrohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch67k—~1.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Hung-Yi Lee Teaching Stylevoidful/hung-yi-lee-skill1.3k—~13kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Claude Certification Tutorrohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch67k—~3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
StudyVault Quiz Tutorbevibing/tutor-skills1.3k—~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Categories

Questions about AI Socratic Dialogue Designer

What does AI Socratic Dialogue Designer do?

Design a multi-round questioning sequence for interrogating AI chatbot answers, tracking how responses shift and distinguishing genuine updates from sycophantic capitulation. AI Socratic Dialogue Designer is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Design a multi-round questioning sequence for interrogating AI chatbot answers, tracking how responses shift and distinguishing genuine updates from sycophantic capitulation.

When should I use AI Socratic Dialogue Designer?

AI Socratic Dialogue Designer fits situations like: teaching students to probe AI critically; tasks that involve Tutoring and explanations.

How do I install AI Socratic Dialogue Designer in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill ai-socratic-dialogue-designer -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/ai-literacy/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .claude/skills/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install AI Socratic Dialogue Designer in Codex?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill ai-socratic-dialogue-designer -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/ai-literacy/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .agents/skills/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use AI Socratic Dialogue Designer in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill ai-socratic-dialogue-designer -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer, .gemini/skills/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer, .github/skills/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer and .opencode/skills/ai-socratic-dialogue-designer in your project.

What does AI Socratic Dialogue Designer need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: AI Socratic Dialogue Designer is instructions for the agent only.

Does AI Socratic Dialogue Designer access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is AI Socratic Dialogue Designer safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does AI Socratic Dialogue Designer use?

AI Socratic Dialogue Designer has a licence file (the repository's licence) that doesn't match a standard licence. Read it on GitHub before reusing the skill.

How many tokens does AI Socratic Dialogue Designer use?

About 6.5k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 26k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to AI Socratic Dialogue Designer?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with AI Socratic Dialogue Designer: DeepTutor CLI (HKUDS/DeepTutor, 41k stars), AI Engineering Project Tutor (rohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch, 67k stars), Hung-Yi Lee Teaching Style (voidful/hung-yi-lee-skill, 1.3k stars) and Claude Certification Tutor (rohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch, 67k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains AI Socratic Dialogue Designer?

GarethManning (a GitHub user) maintains it in GarethManning/education-agent-skills, which has 840 GitHub stars. The repository holds 160 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 28, 2026.

Source: GarethManning/education-agent-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.