prism

---
name: prism
disable-model-invocation: true
description: "Split one artifact — a claim, plan, or file — across 2 to 5 independent lenses, one per genuinely distinct failure mode (correctness, security, readability, cost, adversarial-user), and return their convergence: where they agree, where they disagree, and the single next question that resolves the disagreement. Use when one reviewer isn't enough because the failure modes are heterogeneous, or a claim looks strong to its author and needs cross-lens pressure before it ships."
---

Split one artifact across independent lenses and return where they converge and where they don't.

## Goal

The result is a picture of where the lenses agree, where they disagree, and the smallest question that would resolve the disagreement. Not a checklist, and never an average — averaging the lenses is the failure this skill exists to prevent.

## Workflow

1. Read the artifact end to end before choosing the lenses.
2. Choose one lens per genuinely distinct failure mode — correctness, security, readability, cost, adversarial-user, and the like. Two candidate lenses that share a failure mode are one lens, not two. In practice this lands between **2 and 5**: below 2 there is nothing to converge, and past 5 you are almost always padding with lenses that overlap. There is no default count — the artifact's distinct failure modes set it.
3. Through each lens, produce a one-line verdict — pass, fail, or unclear — with its single most load-bearing reason. No hedging list; if a reason isn't load-bearing, drop it.
4. Compare the verdicts and group them: full agreement, agreement for different reasons, disagreement.
5. Where there is disagreement, name the single next question whose answer would move it into agreement or a clean split with owners. That question is the output, not the individual verdicts.
6. Where every lens agrees, return the shared verdict with the reasons that were load-bearing for at least two lenses.

## Rules

- Independent lenses, not roles. A "security reviewer" and a "senior security reviewer" are one lens, not two.
- One reason per lens — the load-bearing one. A lens that returns a list is hedging.
- Disagreement is the product. A prism that agrees on everything did not need to be run.
- Never average. If two lenses split, the answer is the question that resolves the split, not the midpoint of their verdicts.
- Draw the lenses fresh for the artifact in hand. A lens useful for a spec may be useless for a migration; don't carry lenses across artifacts.
- Don't manufacture disagreement. A run that finds none returns the shared verdict and stops.
- User-invoked on purpose: plural lenses are an opt-in spend, and their convergence must never masquerade as automatic proof, so this fires only when deliberately reached for.

## Verification

The result reads as a picture, not a checklist — a reader sees which lenses agreed, which disagreed, and the one question that matters, and can act on it without re-running the prism. If they'd need to re-run it to know what to do next, step 5 was skipped.