Diego ArrudaSoftware Engineering
PTEN

Court of 12 Claudes

How to install and use the /court skill in Claude Code to put your idea on trial before you spend time on it.

  • free
  • open source (MIT)
  • for Claude Code

Published on

What it is and what you need

Claude tends to agree with everything you say. The /court skill changes that: one Claude argues that the idea will fail, another argues that it will work, jurors vote independently, and a Claude acting as judge summarizes the verdict.

  • Claude Code installed on your computer.
  • Python 3, which the skill uses to organize the votes.
  • A Claude plan with enough usage, because each trial makes several calls.

No API key, sign-up or account connection is needed.

Install the skill

Pick one of the options. The first is the simplest.

Option A: ask Claude to install it

paste into Claude Code
Install the skill from this repository and confirm that the /court command works: https://github.com/alexyc9381/court-skill

Option B: from the terminal

terminal
npx skills add alexyc9381/court-skill

Option C: manually

terminal
git clone https://github.com/alexyc9381/court-skill.git
cp -r court-skill/skills/court ~/.claude/skills/

Option D: as a plugin

inside Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add alexyc9381/court-skill
/plugin install court-skill@court-skill

When installed as a plugin, the skill appears as /court-skill:court.

Open Claude Code in the right folder

Go to your project folder and open Claude Code from there. The trial creates a folder called .court inside it and, according to the repository, leaves your other files alone.

Tip from the repository: turn on accept-edits mode with Shift+Tab, so you do not have to approve every file.

Put your idea on trial

Type /court followed by the idea or decision you are evaluating.

example
/court Start a channel that posts a short video about artificial intelligence every week

Options

--jury N
Sets the number of jurors, from 3 to 12. The default is 12.
--quick
A quick trial with 6 jurors.
--seed S
Locks in which jurors sit on the jury when it is smaller.

A full trial makes 17 sub-agent calls, and quick mode makes 11. All of them count toward your plan usage.

Read the verdict

The result is saved in the VERDICT.md file, inside the .court folder. It contains:

  1. The vote count, for example a 9 to 3 guilty verdict.
  2. Each juror’s reason in one line.
  3. The changes worth making before you try again.
  4. The judge’s section: the charges that stuck, what the defense got right, and the conditions under which the idea would be acquitted.

The repository includes a ready-made example at examples/candles/VERDICT.md.

Before you trust the result

  • The verdict is an AI simulation. It brings up points of view you may have missed, but it does not predict the future.
  • You make the decision. Use the result as a second opinion and check the important facts yourself.
  • To remove the skill: rm -rf ~/.claude/skills/court

Credit

The /court skill is by Alex Chen (@nocodealex): github.com/alexyc9381/court-skill. MIT license. The skill belongs to its author. It is neither mine nor Anthropic’s.