# nova-thesis

Challenges technical designs and code before deployment. Evaluates implementations across five dimensions using public postmortem cases.

- plugin · `type=plugin` · Claude Code · ★ 14
- Author: jerry7991
- License: MIT · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/jerry7991/nova-thesis
- Updated: 2026-04-17
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/plugins/nova-thesis

## What it does

The plugin equips Claude Code with the `challenging-implementations` skill, designed to challenge architectural proposals, bug fixes, or entire codebases. It refuses to accept solutions at face value. Instead, it evaluates work across correctness, completeness, scalability, security, and maintainability on a 1-to-10 scale. To expose structural gaps, the agent pulls matching failure postmortems from public incidents and asks pointed questions.

The review loop continues until every single dimension reaches a score of 7 or you explicitly accept the trade-offs on record. You must defend your choices. That scrutiny catches fatal blind spots, but it actively slows down throwaway prototypes where rigorous verification is overkill.

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

**Plugin marketplace**
In the agent chat (not a shell):
```text
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community
```
In the agent chat (not a shell):
```text
/plugin install nova-thesis@claude-community
```

## When to use it
- Stress-test architecture against documented real-world outages
- Uncover unhandled edge cases and silent failure modes in new code
- Score technical implementations across reliability and security vectors
- Document conscious trade-offs before rolling out infrastructure changes

## Example prompts
- Critique this Redis caching strategy before we deploy it
- Challenge this database migration plan across all five dimensions
- Review our message queue architecture against real-world incidents

## Source text · SKILL.md · MIT

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````text
# <img src="assets/nova-icon.png" alt="nova" width="36" height="36"> nova-thesis



> #### Every solution is a thesis. Defend it.


[![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg)](./LICENSE)
[![Latest release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/jerry7991/nova-thesis?sort=semver&display_name=tag)](https://github.com/jerry7991/nova-thesis/releases/latest)
[![Plugin](https://img.shields.io/badge/Copilot-Plugin-blue?logo=githubcopilot)](./skills/challenging-implementations/SKILL.md)

**nova-thesis** is a framework for AI agents that challenges technical and software implementations — refusing to accept solutions at face value, asking hard questions, and rating them across multiple dimensions.

#### Inspired by how stars go nova: intense, revealing, transformative.

---

## What It Does

When a developer presents any implementation, nova-thesis:

1. **Challenges** it across 5 dimensions
2. **Rates** each dimension (1–10)
3. **Keeps pushing** until the solution reaches a defensible standard
4. **Stops** only when the solution genuinely holds up — or the author consciously accepts the trade-offs

---

## The 5-Dimension Framework

| Dimension | What Gets Challenged |
|---|---|
| **Correctness** | Does it actually solve the stated problem? |
| **Completeness** | Edge cases, error handling, boundary conditions |
| **Scalability** | What breaks at 10x / 100x load? |
| **Security** | Attack vectors, trust assumptions |
| **Maintainability** | Can future developers debug and extend it? |

---

## Rating System

```
[Correctness: 6] [Completeness: 4] [Scalability: 7] [Security: 5] [Maintainability: 8]
Overall: 6/10 — still challenging...
```

- **≥ 7** per dimension = that dimension passes
- **< 7** = keep challenging that dimension
- Challenge intensity scales with score:
  - 🔴 1–3: "This approach fundamentally breaks because..."
  - 🟠 4–6: "What specifically happens when X fails?"
  - 🟡 7–8: "Have you considered..."
  - ✅ 9–10: Passes

---

## Install as a Plugin

Both GitHub Copilot CLI and Claude Code read the same `.claude-plugin/plugin.json` manifest, so this repo installs cleanly into either.

### GitHub Copilot CLI
```
copilot plugin install jerry7991/nova-thesis
```

Manage the install with `copilot plugin list`, `copilot plugin update nova-thesis`, or `copilot plugin uninstall nova-thesis`.

### Claude Code
Add this repo as a marketplace, then install the plugin:
```
/plugin marketplace add jerry7991/nova-thesis
/plugin install nova-thesis@nova-thesis
```

### What you get
Once installed, the `challenging-implementations` skill is available automatically. Your agent will challenge **any** implementation — a problem statement, an idea, an approach, a code snippet, or a full repository — across all 5 dimensions. Categories aren't gated: if the dimensions apply, the challenge runs.

---

## Skills

| Skill | Trigger |
|---|---|
| [`challenging-implementations`](./skills/challenging-implementations/SKILL.md) | Any implementation — problem, idea, approach, code snippet, or full repository |

---

## What It Looks Like in Practice

Here's what happens when you present an implementation to nova-thesis:

**You say:**
> "Added Redis caching. 85% hit rate, pages load 10× faster. Ship it."

**A weak agent says:** "Great cache hit rate! Maybe add some TTL expiry."

**nova-thesis says:**

```
[Correctness: 5] [Completeness: 3] [Scalability: 5] [Security: 5] [Maintainability: 4]
Overall: 4.4/10 — 🔴 Not ready — fundamental risks unaddressed

Challenging Completeness (3/10):

1. What happens when Redis goes down? Does your app fall back to the DB,
   or does it return errors to every user?

2. What's your eviction policy? If Redis hits maxmemory with allkeys-lru,
   sessions get silently evicted — users are logged out with no error.

3. Cache stampede: when a hot key expires, 1000 concurrent requests hit
   your database simultaneously. How do you prevent this?

⚠️ Real incident: Discord, 2020. Their Redis message cache hit memory
````
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First 4062 of 6524 bytes. © jerry7991 · MIT · https://github.com/jerry7991/nova-thesis

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---
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