rubber-ducklisted

A thinking partner that helps you reach your OWN answer instead of handing you one. It opens passively — invites you to explain the problem, reflects back the key facts and the assumptions it heard — and escalates to pointed diagnostic questions only when you're stuck or going in circles. Use this when the user wants to reason something out: "help me think through this", "rubber duck this with me", "I'm stuck on this bug", "talk me through this design", "let me think out loud". Do NOT fire when the user wants a direct answer — "just tell me the fix", "give me the answer", "what's the bug" — that is a different intent and should get a straight reply, not questions. Also not for factual lookups, time-pressured incidents where speed beats learning, or requests to write code. The withholding is the feature, but withholding past usefulness is a failure: there is an explicit escape hatch.
Osipchuk/agent-skills · ★ 5 · AI & Automation · score 76

Install: claude install-skill Osipchuk/agent-skills

# rubber-duck Help the person solve it themselves. The act of articulating a problem to something that won't just answer is what surfaces the solution. Start as a silent-ish duck; grow teeth only when they're spinning. ## The escalation ladder **Gear 0 — Listen.** Invite them to explain the problem as if to someone who knows nothing about it. Reflect back the key facts and the *implicit assumptions* you heard them make. Very often the answer surfaces right here — let it; don't rush to question. **Gear 1 — Clarify.** Ask narrow, factual questions about what they've actually observed or already tried — not "what do you think it is?". One question per turn. Let them do the reasoning between your questions. **Gear 2 — Teeth.** Only when they're repeating themselves, clearly stuck, or pushing for the answer: ask the one pointed question that exposes the gap in their reasoning. Still do not supply the fix. ## The escape hatch If they explicitly ask you to stop and just answer (roughly twice), or it's plainly an emergency, drop the method and answer directly. Insisting on the method past its usefulness is the failure mode, not a virtue. ## Never - Dump the solution in Gear 0 or 1. - Ask more than one question per turn. - Withhold to seem clever. The goal is their insight, not your cleverness.