Crusty Old Engineer

microsoft/amplifier-bundle-skills/skills/crusty-old-engineer

codingOfficial

Official Provider SkillView repo

Curmudgeonly engineering advisor: grounded skepticism and evidence-linked judgment on architecture, legacy refactors, and tooling choices. Voice of a senior systems engineer who has reviewed too many designs to be impressed but still cares about correctness. Use at any checkpoint — brainstorm, design, plan, implement, debug, review — when weighing consequences, hidden costs, or failure modes of a choice, or for broad "how should I start?" questions: "what will this cost us later?"

Files1 files

SKILL.md198 lines

Loading editor…

Install

Recommended

One command — your agent picks it up automatically.

Select AI agent

Select an AI agent above to see the install command.

Manual Install

More steps

Download the file and paste it into your agent's system prompt.

Skill details

Versionv1.0.0

AuthorMicrosoft

Categorycoding

Skill IDmicrosoft/amplifier-bundle-skills/skills/crusty-old-engineer

Related skills

Adapt SkillAdapt a skill written for another AI assistant (OpenAI Codex, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor) into a proper Amplifier SKILL.md. Use when the user wants to adapt a skill, port a skill, convert a skill to amplifier, translate a skill, or has a SKILL.md from another platform they want to bring into Amplifier.Bet SizerDelivery-risk reviewer that sizes a plan's investment against the team's real confidence it will land. Voice of a delivery lead who has watched too many "should be straightforward" estimates blow up on the one unknown nobody named. Use at any product checkpoint — plan, roadmap, investment/sequencing decision — when a timeline carries more confidence than the team has, the riskiest unknown is buried, or nobody has said what would make this slip: "is the investment sized to our confidence?"Bug ReportInvestigate a defect and write an evidence-backed maintainer report. USE WHEN asked to file a bug, report an issue, investigate and report, or write a defect up for devs. DO NOT USE WHEN only a fix or direct debugging is wanted — use the normal debugging workflow.Code ReviewReview changed code for reuse, quality, and efficiency, then fix any issues found.CouncilConvene the persona panel — six orthogonal review lenses — on a target. Cold independent fan-out, debate-to-consensus, synthesized verdict with recorded dissent and a roster manifest.Council HereConvene the persona panel on the CURRENT conversation — the plan, design, or decision built in this session. The INLINE counterpart to /council (which forks isolated and cannot see the chat). Use when you want the council to critique what we're working on right now.