Flat mid-century illustration of people in red, teal and ochre sitting around an oval table
open source · Claude Code skill

Ask your stakeholders before the meeting.

Proxies are simulated personas you test an idea on. Each one has a role, goals, and hard lines. You show them a flow, a spec, or a prototype, and each one tells you where it breaks for them.

Find the problems before the real meeting does.

View on GitHubGet started
Free·Nothing to install·Plain markdown files
00What you get back
A Proxies meeting result: eleven personas with avatars, a summary of the question and the decision, and how each position moved
A fair warning

Proxies are simulations. They show the worries a role would likely raise. They do not predict what a real person will say.

01Why not just ask for five personas?

Five personas in one prompt is still one voice. Proxies keeps them apart.

Two flat illustrated figures facing each other, each with an empty speech bubble

  • Real disagreement, not polite agreement

    Each persona runs as a separate agent and only sees their own card, so they cannot blur into one agreeable voice.

  • Personas that get closer to the real people

    You build your team of personas once and reuse it. When a real person says something different, you correct the card.

  • Feedback on your real work

    They read your real spec and decision docs, not an old draft.

  • A clear outcome, not a long chat

    Everyone gives a view on their own. Then they answer each other. Then someone decides, and any disagreement is written down.

  • One page that tells you what to fix

    Every run ends on one results page: who blocks it, what is critical, and what fixes it.

02How it works

Three steps. One page of answers.

01

Pick a team

Choose a company and its personas. Three sample teams come with the project, or you can describe your own and Claude drafts it.

02

Give them something to review

Hand over a flow, a spec, a prototype, or a design idea. Add one line about the situation.

03

Read the results page

See who would block it, the problems ranked from critical to minor, and what to fix first. Click any name to read their full answer.

03Where everyone stands

See who thinks what, and what changed.

Each persona gives a first take, then answers the room. You can see at a glance who moved and who held their ground.

A Proxies result with a hover card for Tomas, a technical director who can veto, showing his quote and hard lines
Hover over a persona to see their hard lines.
A list of ten personas with their first take and their response to the room, such as Rework to Rework or Ship with changes
Open a persona to read their rounds in order.
04The personas

Every persona has a card.

The card says who they are and what they care about. It is just a markdown file, so you can read it and edit it by hand.

  • Role and who they report to
  • What they are measured on
  • Hard lines they will not cross
  • Blind spots they have
  • How they like to review
  • Their voice, in one line

Each persona also gets an avatar. The same persona always gets the same one.

  • Sam, engineering lead
    Sam
    engineering lead
  • Ken, head of support
    Ken
    head of support
  • Rita, VP sales
    Rita
    VP sales
  • Jo, head of product
    Jo
    head of product
  • Ana, operations director
    Ana
    operations director
  • Theo, AI engineer
    Theo
    AI engineer
A Proxies persona card for Kofi, head of player support. It shows his avatar, a quote, what he is measured on, his hard lines, his blind spots, and how he reviews
05What you can do

Pick the kind of review you need.

/proxies redteam

Everyone tries to break your idea.

/proxies meeting

They debate it, then the persona who decides makes the call.

/proxies prep

Get each persona's top questions before you walk in.

/proxies followup

Check whether your new version answered their objections.

/proxies compare

Show two versions. Each persona picks one.

/proxies ask / talk

Ask one persona a question, or have a longer chat.

06Make it yours

Describe your company. Get your team.

Write a few lines about the business, and Claude drafts it for you: the rules, who decides what, and the words people use. Then add personas one at a time. Anything Claude guessed is marked, and you see the draft before it is saved.

Each persona has a decision level. Some decide. Some can block. Some must sign off. Some give advice. Some just want to be kept in the loop.

When the real person says something different, tell Proxies. It suggests changes to the card and keeps a log, so your team gets closer to the real people over time.

You can also share a whole team as one file, or copy a persona into another company and adjust them. Three sample teams come with the project: a project planning tool, a clinic network, and a game studio.

The Proxies library showing a team of eleven personas, each with an avatar, a name, and a decision level such as decision owner, veto holder, or consulted
A team of eleven personas, from decision owner to informed.
07Get started

Nothing to install.

Download the project, open Claude Code inside it, and the skill is ready. Start a new session after you download or update it.

  • Needs Node 22 or newer and Claude Code
  • Results open as a page on their own after each run
  • Everything is plain markdown, so it is easy to read and change
terminalzsh
# You need Node 22 or newer and Claude Code
$git clone https://github.com/rgourley/proxies.git
$cd proxies
$claude
# Then, inside Claude Code
>/proxies use tilt
>/proxies redteam your-flow.mmd "an agency invites 30 client reviewers"
Free to use · by Robert Gourley

Hear the pushback first.

github.com/rgourley/proxiesSee more projects

Licensed under PolyForm Shield 1.0.0. You can use, change, and share Proxies for any purpose, including inside your company, except to build a product that competes with it.