Sanity-check a number you already like
Lesson 5 of 6 · Price it without inventing a number
1 · Learn the move · Cognitive verifier
The dangerous number is not the one you are unsure about. It is the one you like, because liking it is when you stop checking. A cognitive verifier prompt makes the model break a conclusion into the smaller questions it rests on, answer each one separately from the documents, and only then say whether the conclusion survives. For a price those questions are ordinary: do the sales behind it exist of record, are the acres behind the per-acre figure the deed's acres, is access established, what costs sit between this number and cash in hand, and what would have to be true for it to be wrong. Tell the model you like the number, so it knows which way your bias runs. Allow only three verdicts: HOLDS, DOES NOT HOLD, or CANNOT TELL WITH THESE DOCUMENTS. It may test your number. It may not replace it.
I like this resale figure and I want it tested, not confirmed. Break it into the questions it depends on, answer each from the documents below with a citation, then give one verdict: HOLDS, DOES NOT HOLD, or CANNOT TELL WITH THESE DOCUMENTS. Do not offer a different number.
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
You have settled on a resale figure for a 32-acre tract in Lintel County and you have been telling people about it for a week. Before you send an offer built on it, you want it pulled apart by something that has no stake in it. Write the prompt.
Write the prompt for this scenario as given, or swap in a real one from your own work. The score works the same either way.
Remember: the AI sees only your prompt, not this page. If the situation isn't in your prompt, it doesn't exist.
Optional. These shape the output when you run your prompt below, not your score.