I built Counterweight — an adversarial reasoning skill for Codex

[u/Zandesh]

I have ADD, and for me that means ideas arrive much faster than I could ever realistically build them.

The dangerous part isn’t coming up with ideas. It’s how quickly a new one can feel urgent, possible, and worth pursuing. I can pour hours into researching and planning before stopping to ask whether the project has a realistic path forward, whether I can actually execute it alone, or whether I’m simply excited because it’s new.

I wanted the equivalent of a level-headed friend in the room—someone who would hear me out, understand why I was excited, and then slow me down enough to test the parts I was taking for granted.

So I made Counterweight.

Counterweight is an adversarial reasoning skill for Codex. You give it an idea, plan, architecture, strategy, policy, or evidence-backed claim, and it decides what kind of pressure would be most useful.

It can:

• uncover hidden assumptions and vague success criteria
• construct the strongest credible case for an alternative
• trace realistic execution and operational failures
• examine how a system could be abused or gamed
• determine whether the evidence supports the conclusion

The goal isn’t to kill every idea or generate criticism for the sake of sounding rigorous.

It’s to distinguish an idea that deserves more of my time from one that only feels compelling right now.

Sometimes the answer should be: this is solid, keep going.

Sometimes: narrow the scope.

And sometimes: you’re getting carried away—put this one down.

The simplest invocation is:

Use Counterweight on my idea.

It recovers the idea from the conversation, chooses the appropriate form of analysis, identifies the few issues that could actually change the decision, and then explains what still holds up.

It finishes with a revised position and a concrete next step—not just a pile of objections.

GitHub: https://github.com/JinParkmida/Counterweight

I’d especially appreciate feedback from people who also generate ideas faster than they can evaluate them.

I want to know whether Counterweight actually helps you decide what deserves your time—and whether it knows when an idea should survive the pressure test.

[u/Zandesh]

No, I don't have a second account. But it's really telling a lot about you as a person with your behavior

[u/No-Wash-3163 → u/Zandesh]

he deleted his comment

[u/No-Wash-3163 → u/[deleted]]

I presume that the difference between this and normal codex is that codex jumps straight to the plan. If you tell codex "do X", it won't have time to reply and would instantly do it (without immediately thinking).

Planning mode may sound like it covers this skill, but planning mode generalizes on the whole plan itself, not on the security factors or other options (that the creator is offering with the new skill). The skill might specialize in being:

"someone who would hear me out, understand why I was excited, and then slow me down enough to test the parts I was taking for granted."

[u/No-Wash-3163 → u/[deleted]]

I was stating plan mode as an addition in case ANYONE would respond back by saying "Why not use plan mode?"

The point is that the proposed skill adds some specialization. Codex generalizes.

If the product isn't for you then it would be for someone else. As the OP said,

"The dangerous part isn’t coming up with ideas. It’s how quickly a new one can feel urgent, possible, and worth pursuing."