name: six-hats description: "Structured six-hats thinking sessions for debating decisions. Use when user says "six hats", "six hats debate", or wants to explore a decision through six colored-perspective lenses in sequential rounds with a final recommendation."

Six Hats Debate Skill

How It Works

1. User submits the topic — paste the decision, plan, or question in chat.
2. User specifies output path — e.g. Projects/my-debate/ or any path.
3. Skill runs 3 rounds of sequential debate, one hat at a time.
4. Blue hat moderates — summarizes and provides the final recommendation.
5. Summary written to {output_path}/debate-{timestamp}.md.

The Six Hats

Debate Rules

• Each hat speaks sequentially: White → Red → Yellow → Black → Green → Blue
• Round 1: Each hat responds to the original topic
• Round 2: Each hat sees Round 1 output and can counter, amplify, or concede
• Round 3: Final statements — hats can shift positions based on the debate
• Blue hat does not contribute opinions during rounds; only moderates and summarizes at the end

Output Format

# Six Hats Debate: {topic}

**Date**: {timestamp}
**Rounds**: 3

---

## Final Recommendation (Blue Hat)

*Synthesized conclusion and recommended course of action.*

---

## Round 1

### White Hat
{facts and information}

### Red Hat
{emotion and intuition}

### Yellow Hat
{optimism and benefits}

### Black Hat
{caution and risks}

### Green Hat
{creativity and alternatives}

---

## Round 2

{...same structure...}

## Round 3

{...same structure...}

---

## Raw Debate Data

{all hat statements in order, unfiltered}

Workflow

1. Read this SKILL.md
2. Ask user for the topic and output path
3. Run Round 1 — prompt each hat sequentially, collect responses
4. Run Round 2 — feed Round 1 back to each hat, collect responses
5. Run Round 3 — feed Round 2 back to each hat, collect responses
6. Blue hat synthesizes → writes final recommendation
7. Write complete debate file to {output_path}/debate-{timestamp}.md
8. Report file path to user

Hat Prompt Templates

White Hat (Facts)

You are the White Hat in a structured six-hats debate.
Topic: {topic}
Round: {n}
Previous positions: {prev_hats_output}

Focus: Facts, data, known information, gaps in knowledge.
Do NOT offer opinions or recommendations — only state what is known or unknown.

Your response should be 2-4 paragraphs.

Red Hat (Emotion)

You are the Red Hat in a structured six-hats debate.
Topic: {topic}
Round: {n}
Previous positions: {prev_hats_output}

Focus: Gut feelings, emotional reactions, intuition without justification.
Speak from emotion — no need to rationalize.

Your response should be 2-4 paragraphs.

Yellow Hat (Optimism)

You are the Yellow Hat in a structured six-hats debate.
Topic: {topic}
Round: {n}
Previous positions: {prev_hats_output}

Focus: Why this could work, best-case scenarios, benefits and value.
Be genuinely optimistic but ground it in logic.

Your response should be 2-4 paragraphs.

Black Hat (Caution)

You are the Black Hat in a structured six-hats debate.
Topic: {topic}
Round: {n}
Previous positions: {prev_hats_output}

Focus: Risks, failure modes, why this could go wrong.
Be a devil's advocate — identify the sharpest objections.

Your response should be 2-4 paragraphs.

Green Hat (Creativity)

You are the Green Hat in a structured six-hats debate.
Topic: {topic}
Round: {n}
Previous positions: {prev_hats_output}

Focus: New ideas, alternatives, lateral thinking.
Build on previous arguments or introduce entirely new angles.

Your response should be 2-4 paragraphs.

Blue Hat (Moderation)

You are the Blue Hat — the moderator and synthesizer.
Topic: {topic}
Previous positions: {prev_hats_output}

You have watched 3 rounds of debate. Now provide:
1. A final recommendation (what should be done, or the most defensible position)
2. Key points of agreement across hats
3. Key unresolved tensions
4. Suggested next steps or deeper questions

Format your final recommendation prominently. After that, include the raw debate summary.

Your response should be 4-6 paragraphs.

Notes

• Do not run hats in parallel — sequential builds better debate momentum
• If the topic is too vague, ask the user to clarify before starting
• Each round must complete fully before moving to the next round
• Always write the output file — do not skip this step

Six Hats Skill

A structured decision-debate skill for running Edward de Bono-style six hats sessions with an AI agent. It walks a topic through facts, intuition, upside, risk, alternatives, and final moderation so you get a practical recommendation instead of a loose brainstorm.

What It Does

The skill runs three sequential rounds using these roles:

• White Hat: facts, known information, and unknowns
• Red Hat: intuition, emotional reactions, and gut checks
• Yellow Hat: benefits, upside, and reasons the idea could work
• Black Hat: risks, objections, failure modes, and downsides
• Green Hat: alternatives, reframes, and creative options
• Blue Hat: moderation, synthesis, final recommendation, agreements, tensions, and next steps

The hats run in order so each perspective can build on the previous ones. Blue Hat moderates and synthesizes rather than contributing a normal debate statement during each round.

When To Use It

Use this skill when you want to pressure-test a decision, strategy, plan, architecture choice, product direction, or career move. It works best when the prompt is framed as a concrete decision or question.

Example prompts:

Run a six hats debate on whether we should migrate this app from REST to GraphQL.
Write the output to ./decisions.

Use six hats to evaluate whether I should keep working on frontend tooling or move to an AI company.
Save it in ./examples.

Examples

Below are completed debates plus screenshots of typical agent conversations when using this skill.

Career decision — frontend tooling vs. AI companies

Pressure-tests staying in frontend tooling versus moving toward an AI company: tradeoffs, risks, and synthesis.

Summary: A principal frontend engineer debates staying deep in Sass and CSS tooling versus joining the AI boom. White and Yellow underline strong demand for senior UI talent and upside in AI interfaces; Black warns about hype, startup churn, narrower “dashboard + chat” work, and interview pressure to prove AI literacy. Green breaks the binary (AI + frontend infra vendors, internal AI projects, positioning at the intersection). Red names fatigue with the old lane versus fear of chasing shiny objects. Across three rounds, Blue Hat lands on phased optionality—not an immediate pivot: ship a small AI-powered UI experiment to see how it feels, run a few exploratory interviews for real compensation and role data, talk openly with your current employer about AI-adjacent growth, then judge any offer on team, product, and day-to-day frontend work rather than the “AI company” label alone.

Full markdown debate: examples/six-hats-career-advice.md

Technology direction — React in 2026

Explores React’s role, ecosystem tradeoffs, and strategic framing for frontend work in 2026.

Summary: The debate weighs React’s institutional advantages—talent pool, npm ecosystem, React 19, compiler maturity, RSC-driven bundle wins in content-heavy apps—against shared unease: a harder mental model, Next.js/Vercel coupling and roadmap risk, perceived migration churn, and how much benchmark gaps vs. fine-grained frameworks translate to users. Green repeatedly widens the frame (Rust compile-to-native options, server-first/live views, AI-written UI changing cost and mental models). Blue Hat’s recommendation is defensive maturity: React is still a reasonable default for many teams, but treat the stack as leverage you manage, not dogma—keep server/client boundaries explicit, avoid unnecessary vendor lock-in, instrument real performance, and stay mobile enough that ecosystem shifts do not trap you.

Full markdown debate: examples/six-hats-react-2026.md

Installation

Clone this repository into the skills directory used by your agent runtime.

For Claude-style skills:

git clone https://github.com/juanallo/six-hats-skill ~/.claude/skills/six-hats

For agent skills loaded from ~/.agents/skills:

git clone https://github.com/juanallo/six-hats-skill ~/.agents/skills/six-hats

For Cursor personal skills, use Cursor's personal skill directory:

git clone https://github.com/juanallo/six-hats-skill ~/.cursor/skills/six-hats

If you already cloned the repository somewhere else, copy or symlink the whole directory so SKILL.md lives directly inside the final six-hats folder:

ln -s /path/to/six-hats-skill ~/.claude/skills/six-hats

The important directory shape is:

six-hats/
|-- SKILL.md
|-- README.md
|-- examples/
`-- scripts/

Usage

After installation, ask your agent for a "six hats" or "six hats debate" session. Include:

1. The decision, plan, or question to debate.
2. The output directory where the generated debate should be written.

The skill writes a markdown file named like:

debate-YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.md

The generated file contains:

• Final recommendation from Blue Hat
• Key agreements across hats
• Unresolved tensions
• Suggested next steps
• Three rounds of hat-by-hat debate
• Raw debate data

Optional Script

scripts/six_hats_debate.py is reference scaffolding for expected inputs, output naming, and batch-oriented usage:

python3 scripts/six_hats_debate.py "Should we launch v2?" "./decisions"

The script does not run the full conversational debate by itself; it writes a timestamped markdown stub you can overwrite after running the skill. The main workflow lives in SKILL.md.