audit-chain-of-thought

Follow these steps:

1. Extract the reasoning chain

Identify each distinct inferential step from premises to conclusion. Make implicit steps explicit — "A therefore C" often hides "A therefore B, B therefore C."

2. Tag each step by type

• Deductive: conclusion necessarily follows (if premises true, conclusion must be true). E.g. "All users need authentication. This is a user. Therefore this needs authentication."
• Inductive: conclusion generalizes from instances (if premises true, conclusion probably true). E.g. "The last 40 deploys succeeded. Therefore this deploy will probably succeed."
• Abductive: conclusion is the best explanation for observations. E.g. "Performance degraded after the cache change. Therefore the cache change probably caused it."

3. Assess soundness at each step

• Deductive: are the premises true? Is the form valid?
• Inductive: how many instances? How representative? What counterexamples?
• Abductive: what alternative explanations exist? Which is actually best?

4. Identify the weakest links