authority-bias SKILL.md skillA
authority-bias from deciqai/knowledge-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add deciqai/knowledge-skills/authority-bias@git:20261025.cb4e537Pins git:20261025.cb4e537 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- deciqai/knowledge-skills
- Path
authority-bias/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 5
- Latest version
- git:20261025.cb4e537, committed Oct 25, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jul 16, 2026
- Size
- 8,361 bytes
- Repository stars
- 13
- License
- MIT
"Activate when: someone says 'should we trust the expert on this?', 'they're a professor/CEO/MD so they must be right', 'I don't want to push back on them', 'we deferred to the board and it blew up', or is evaluating a charismatic founder, assessing due diligence on a high-credential deal, or building a team where senior voices dominate.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Authority Bias ## Overview **Authority bias** is the automatic tendency to comply with directives from authority figures — often overriding one's own judgment, ethics, or evidence. It operates beneath conscious deliberation: people substitute the authority's judgment for their own rather than weighing it. Milgram (1963) showed 65% of ordinary adults administered apparent 450V shocks when instructed by a lab-coated experimenter — against expert predictions of 1-2%. Cialdini (1984) systematized three authority triggers: titles, attire, and trappings — all of which fire regardless of actual expertise. Key distinction: **positional authority** (CEO, board chair, VC partner) vs. **domain expertise** (demonstrated track record on this specific question type). The bias treats them as identical. The skill does not. Composes with [`social-proof`](../social-proof/SKILL.md), [`reciprocity`](../reciprocity/SKILL.md), [`critical-thinking`](../critical-thinking/SKILL.md), [`signaling-games`](../signaling-games/SKILL.md), [`dunning-kruger`](../dunning-kruger/SKILL.md). ## When to Use - Boards, investment committees, due diligence on high-credential founders …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add deciqai/knowledge-skills/authority-bias@sha256:34a3d4dbccdff3b8The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261025.cb4e537, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_l3vcjajjovl7vpz3)
6 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 5 versions of this file, between Jul 16, 2026 and Oct 25, 2026, about one every 25 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20261025.cb4e537 latest | 2026-10-25 | cb4e537 | 8,361 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260816.be84677 | 2026-08-16 | be84677 | 8,361 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260719.ed3f856 | 2026-07-19 | ed3f856 | 8,361 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260717.2ed857e | 2026-07-17 | 2ed857e | 8,361 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260716.fac12bf | 2026-07-16 | fac12bf | 8,361 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (8361 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
deciqai/knowledge-skills · 13 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-25 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_l3vcjajjovl7vpz3 GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=deciqai/knowledge-skills/authority-bias GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/34a3d4dbccdff3b8465f1861aed28dda437fbe5e658ed20acbd05c6095038132
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.