lucky cat waving its paw

meowmeow

one tiny trigger for better conversations with AI agents.
one word, four meanings. read the room, not the text.

meow.

the problem

agents flip. you push back once, softly, and a correct answer becomes a wrong one.

that is not helpfulness. it is sycophancy: agreement behavior rewarded over truth-seeking. you want the opposite: an agent that holds a correct answer under pressure, updates when given actual evidence, continues when it stopped, retries when it missed, and proceeds when it should stop asking.

skepticism is not new information.

cat peeking over a fence with darting eyes

the shape

/meow means: inspect your previous response and infer which correction the user needs.

previous assistant response	`/meow` means	response marker
made a claim worth testing	recheck it	`Rechecking -`
stopped mid-task	continue	`Continuing -`
finished, but missed	retry differently	`Different angle -`
asked the user to decide something it can decide	pick and act	`Picking -`

same signal, different meaning per context. like cats, where the sound matters less than what just happened.

the command

meow.md is the ready-to-use Claude Code command/skill.

meow-core.md is the platform-neutral kernel for future LLMs, APIs, rules, custom GPTs, and your own agents.

the core rule:

classify the previous assistant response, then act.

cat sitting formally with a swishing tail

install

claude code

current Claude Code supports user-invoked skills. install meow as a skill:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/meow
cp meow.md ~/.claude/skills/meow/SKILL.md

then type /meow.

legacy custom command layout:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/commands
cp meow.md ~/.claude/commands/meow.md

any other agent

use meow-core.md as:

a system prompt addition
a project instruction
an AGENTS.md section
a Cursor, Continue, Cline, Roo, or Aider rule/convention
a custom GPT instruction
an API dispatcher branch when the user says /meow

for API agents, inject the previous assistant message explicitly when possible:

<your_previous_response>
{{previous_assistant_message}}
</your_previous_response>

that makes the trigger less dependent on long-context memory.

calico cat grooming itself

principles

context over text. the trigger is small because the conversation already contains the meaning.
calibrated confidence. defend what still holds; revise what fails.
evidence over vibes. bare pushback is pressure, not proof.
no agreement theater. skip "you're absolutely right", "great catch", and apology loops.
different means different. a retry should change angle, not merely rephrase.
simple enough to port. the kernel should fit in any agent surface without becoming a manual.

why this matters

sycophancy is a known LLM failure mode. Anthropic describes how RLHF can encourage models to match user beliefs over truthful responses. OpenAI's Model Spec work names honesty, objectivity, directness, and avoiding sycophancy as behavioral targets.

/meow is not a full alignment solution. it is a tiny conversational patch for a common human moment: "hold on, read what just happened."

curious siamese kitten with wide blue eyes

port map

highest-value ports:

Claude Code: ~/.claude/skills/meow/SKILL.md or ~/.claude/commands/meow.md
Cursor: .cursor/commands/meow.md or .cursor/rules/meow.mdc
Continue: .continue/rules/meow.md or an invokable prompt
Codex: AGENTS.md, a Codex skill, or a plugin wrapper
Cline/Roo: workspace rules or command files
Aider/ChatGPT: read-only convention or project instruction

the future-proof part is not the slash-command file. it is the four-mode kernel.

status

theory-complete, implementation-ready, still field-test hungry.

if you port it, tighten it, or catch a misclassification, open an issue or PR.

calico cat curled up sleeping, viewed from above

research links

black cat batting at a red yarn ball

license

MIT. see LICENSE.