# Vaccinate

Qualify a check before it is allowed to clear anything, prove it can detect the...

- Repository: https://github.com/pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow (1676 stars)
- Category: Testing
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-09-27
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill vaccinate -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill vaccinate -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill vaccinate -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow --skill vaccinate -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Qualify a check before it is allowed to clear anything, prove it can detect the failure it is meant to catch. Seeds known defects into a copy of a real artifact plus a clean control, runs the checker, and reports recall and false-positive rate into a qualification ledger. Use when the user says "does this check work", "qualify the gate", "test my reviewer", "seed defects", "vaccinate", "qualify the checks", "can I trust this review", "does it pass for the right reason", or before relying on any automated check or referee simulation for a decision that matters. NOT a code fixer and NOT a reviewer itself, it grades the grader.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Vaccinate, grade the grader

Twenty bugs were once planted in a working codebase and the review agents were asked to check
it again. They reported everything was fine. **Recall: 0/20.**

A vaccine is a small, controlled dose of error that strengthens the whole system. This skill
administers one.

**The rule it enforces: an unqualified check is not weak evidence, it is none.**

## When to run it

- Before a referee simulation, reproducibility gate, or review agent is used to make a
  decision that matters (a submission, a release, a deposit).
- After changing a checker, a modified gate is unqualified until re-measured.
- On a schedule for gates that guard load-bearing claims. Detection decays as artifacts drift.

## Protocol

### 1. Name the failure

State the defect **class** the check is supposed to catch. "Catches problems" is not a class.
"Detects a coefficient in the text that no longer matches its table" is.

### 2. Build the seeded set + a clean control

Work on a **copy**, never the live artifact. Produce:

- **N seeded variants**, one defect each, drawn from `references/defect-library.md`.
- **At least one clean control**, an unmodified copy.

The control is not optional. Without it you measure recall and call it accuracy.

**Verify each seed actually violates something.** A seed that the artifact already permits
creates no defect, and the checker correctly reporting "pass" will look like a broken gate.
This is the most common way a qualification run produces a false alarm about itself.

### 3. Run the checker blind

Run the check or agent against each variant **in a fresh context**, one variant per run. It
must not know which variant it has, how many defects exist, or that a qualification is
underway. For an AI reviewer, spawn a fresh-context `Agent` call (not a conversation fork, which would carry the seeded answer key).

### 4. Score

The rest: https://github.com/pedrohcgs/claude-code-my-workflow/blob/HEAD/.claude/skills/vaccinate/SKILL.md