13 skills that teach an AI agent how to sell, negotiate, and close.

Distilled from 36 books read cover to cover.
CIA manuals. FBI behavior work. Propaganda science. The persuasion classics.

dark-psychology-skills is a free, MIT-licensed set of 13 agent skills (SKILL.md files) that teach AI agents honest negotiation, persuasion, objection handling and sales outreach. Drop them into Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, opencode or any agent that reads markdown.

The problem

Agents can code and browse.
Ask one to handle a skeptical buyer, and it sends a corporate email nobody answers.

Nobody trained it. These books did the training for humans for 100 years.
We turned that training into files an agent can load.

The filter

Every tactic had to pass one test:

Does it still work after you explain it out loud?

Tricks die when seen. Honest moves keep working.
So manipulation shows up here only as defense material.

The skills

Skill	Use it for
deal-router	Which skill fits the message you just got
trust-from-zero	Get believed when nobody knows you
frame-control	Stop needing the deal
discovery-power	Questions that make people open up
price-anchor	Set the first number. Hold it.
objection-slayer	Answers to every "no"
risk-reversal	You carry the risk, deal closes itself
cold-outreach	First messages that get replies
reading-people	Spot real intent in chat
client-archetypes	Six buyer types, six tones
walk-away-power	Leave in a way that raises your value
operator-mindset	Stay calm before every send
dark-tactics-defense	See tricks aimed at you

Start with deal-router. It points to the rest.

Install

Works with Claude Code, opencode, Cursor, Codex CLI, or any agent that reads markdown.

npx skills add YannisKiefer/dark-psychology-skills

Or the manual way:

git clone https://github.com/YannisKiefer/dark-psychology-skills.git
cp -r dark-psychology-skills/skills/* ~/.claude/skills/

Or paste any SKILL.md into your system prompt.

Each skill follows the agent skills format:
YAML frontmatter with name and description, body in plain English.

Example

See EXAMPLES.md. A buyer goes from
"is this another scam?" to "deal" without one argument about price.

Sources

SOURCES.md lists all 36 books and what each one gave us.

Rules baked into every skill

Proof before money.
Real numbers beat adjectives.
Urgency must be true, or silent.
Never make anyone wrong.
Walk warm.

FAQ

What is dark-psychology-skills?
13 plain-English skill files that tell an AI agent what to say when it sells, negotiates or answers a "no". Each file has the idea, the moves with example lines, when it backfires, and a one-line memory.

Does it teach manipulation?
No. Every tactic had to pass one test: it still works after you explain it to the other person. Manipulation appears only in dark-tactics-defense, so you can spot it when it is aimed at you.

Which agents does it work with?
Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, opencode, and any agent that can load a markdown file. You can also paste a single SKILL.md into a system prompt.

Where do I start?
Install all 13, then point your agent at deal-router. It reads the last message and picks the right skill.

Is text from the books copied?
No. Every skill is written in original words. SOURCES.md names each book and what it contributed.

Can I use it commercially?
Yes. MIT license.

License

MIT. Fork it, ship it, sell products with it.

_{Built by Yannis Kiefer, founder of EcomBrain.}