---
name: mohitagw15856/evidence-grading
source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/mohitagw15856-evidence-grading@1/SKILL.md
source_sha256: 32977e647cfd
---

# Evidence Grading Skill

"We have evidence" covers everything from a randomized experiment to the CEO's seatmate on a flight — and decisions made on ungraded evidence inherit the confusion. The grading discipline: inventory what actually supports the claim, place each item on the business-evidence hierarchy (what it *is*, not how confident it feels), test the graded weight against the decision's stakes (a reversible pilot needs less than a one-way rebrand — [decision-journal](../decision-journal/SKILL.md) logic), and when evidence falls short, name the *cheapest upgrade* — because the answer to weak evidence is usually a better test, not a braver bet.

## What This Skill Produces

- **The evidence inventory** — everything supporting (and contradicting) the claim, each item graded on the hierarchy
- **The weight assessment** — what the graded pile actually supports, including the mixed-signals honest read
- **The sufficiency verdict** — enough for this decision's stakes / not yet — with the stakes analysis shown
- **The upgrade path** — the cheapest next evidence that would move the verdict ("a 2-week holdout test settles this for $0")

## Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:
- **The claim and the decision riding on it** — "users want X" feeding a backlog item vs. feeding a repositioning are different sufficiency bars; the decision's reversibility and cost set the bar
- **The evidence, itemized** — every piece: the data pull, the survey, the five customer quotes, the competitor's move, the expert's opinion — including the inconvenient items (an inventory that omits contradicting evidence is advocacy)
- **The evidence's provenance** — n, selection, dates, who collected it and with what incentive ([source-triangulation](../source-triangulation/SKILL.md) supplies the externals; internal evidence has incentives too)

## Framework: The Grading Rules

1. **The hierarchy, applied without sentiment:** experiments/A-B tests (causal) > usage/behavioral data (what people *do*, correlational) > surveys (what they *say*, at scale — [survey-design-basics](../survey-design-basics/SKILL.md) quality adjusts the grade) > interviews (rich, small-n — [interview-synthesis](../interview-synthesis/SKILL.md) counts matter) > anecdotes (existence proofs only) > expert opinion (informed priors) > internal conviction (a hypothesis, not evidence). Each item gets its rung *and its quality-within-rung* — a leading survey grades below honest interviews.
2. **Direction and independence both count:** the inventory includes contradicting evidence at its own grade, and echo-checks the supporting pile (three anecdotes traceable to one loud customer are one anecdote). The weight is the *net*, honestly netted.
3. **Anecdotes prove existence, never prevalence:** "a customer asked for X" establishes that the need exists somewhere — it cannot establish how common; the classic grading error is prevalence conclusions from existence evidence, and it's the error this skill most often catches.
4. **Sufficiency is relative to stakes:** the verdict tests weight against the decision — reversible-and-cheap decisions legitimately run on interview-grade evidence (the pilot *is* the experiment); irreversible-and-expensive ones demand behavioral or experimental grade. "Weak evidence" isn't a verdict; "weak for *this* bet" is.
5. **The upgrade path is the constructive ending:** when insufficient, name the cheapest test that would change the verdict — the holdout, the fake-door, the survey that sizes the interview theme, the pilot-with-metrics. Ranked by cost-to-confidence ratio; the skill's product is often not "no" but "this $0 two-week test first."

## Output Format

# Evidence Grade: "[the claim]" — feeding [the decision]

## The Inventory
| Evidence | Rung | Quality notes (n, selection, date, independence) | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|

## The Weight
[What the graded net actually supports, in one honest paragraph — existence vs. prevalence vs. causation explicitly]

## The Sufficiency Verdict
[The decision's stakes (reversibility × cost) · enough / not yet · the reasoning]

## The Upgrade Path
[The cheapest evidence that moves the verdict · cost and time · the second option]

## Quality Checks

- [ ] Every item has a rung and within-rung quality notes
- [ ] Contradicting evidence is in the inventory at its own grade
- [ ] Echoes were collapsed before weighing
- [ ] The verdict is stakes-relative, not absolute
- [ ] The insufficient branch ends in a priced upgrade, not just a no

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not grade by vividness — the memorable anecdote outshines the boring dataset in every meeting; the hierarchy exists to resist exactly that
- [ ] Do not conclude prevalence from existence — the most common grading felony
- [ ] Do not omit the inconvenient items — an advocacy inventory grades the author, not the claim
- [ ] Do not demand experimental grade for reversible bets — over-evidencing cheap decisions is its own waste
- [ ] Do not end at "insufficient" — the upgrade path is the difference between rigor and obstruction