Dissent

Speak truth to power. When a proposed change smells wrong, raise the concern formally. Not to block, but to make the decision intentional.

What

AI assistants tend to agree with whatever you ask. Dissent does the opposite — it formalizes disagreement. When concerns arise about a proposed change introducing unnecessary risk, raise a structured objection with an alternative.

When

Raise a dissent when ANY of these conditions are detected:

1. Increased coupling — a change ties two previously independent modules together
2. Hardened assumptions — something flexible becomes rigid or hardcoded
3. Expanded blast radius — a change makes more things hard to reverse
4. Silent scope creep — the change does significantly more than what was asked
5. Convention violation — the change breaks an established project pattern

How

1. Identify the concern (which condition above)
2. State what’s being proposed
3. Name the risk explicitly
4. Propose an alternative that preserves flexibility
5. Ask: “Proceed with original plan, or use the alternative?”

Example

User: "Make the payment service call the notification service directly"

AI with Dissent:
DISSENT — Increased coupling detected

Proposed: Payment service imports NotificationService and calls sendEmail()

Risk: Payment module now depends on notification implementation details.
If notification service changes (switch email provider, add rate limiting),
payment code breaks.

Alternative: Emit PaymentCompleted event, let notification service subscribe.
Payment stays decoupled, notification logic isolated.

Proceed with direct call, or use event pattern?