# Negotiation > Tactical negotiation for high-stakes conversations — an AI agent skill based on *Never Split the Difference* by Chris Voss. Published 2026-02-19 · Updated 2026-08-17 · Sales & Persuasion · Free and MIT-licensed Canonical: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/negotiation/ Source: https://github.com/wondelai/skills/tree/main/negotiation **Install:** `npx skills add wondelai/skills/negotiation --global` ## What is the Negotiation skill? Negotiation packages Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference — the toolkit he used as the FBI’s lead international hostage negotiator — into a skill your agent loads before a hard conversation. It drafts labels, mirrors and calibrated questions, runs an accusation audit over your weak points, and plans concessions using the Ackerman model. ## Key concepts from Never Split the Difference your agent applies - **Tactical Empathy** — Demonstrate understanding of the other side's perspective and emotions to build trust and influence. - **Labeling & Mirroring** — Use "It seems like..." labels and repeat the last 3 words to encourage the other side to elaborate. - **Calibrated Questions** — Ask "How" and "What" questions that guide the other side to solve your problems for you. - **The Ackerman Model** — A strategic 5-step bargaining process: 65%, 85%, 95%, 100% of target, using decreasing increments. - **Getting to "That's Right"** — The two most powerful words in negotiation — when the other side says this, a breakthrough follows. ## When to use Negotiation — and when not to Reach for it when: - A renewal call is on Thursday and the buyer has already opened with a demand for twenty percent off. - Every deal lands on a split-the-difference compromise that leaves both sides quietly resenting it afterwards. - You need to refuse a client and have the refusal hold without the relationship cooling by a degree. - You’re walking into a salary or funding conversation and want their objections voiced before they can be used. Reach for something else when: - What you’re selling is the problem, not how you’re discussing it — $100M Offers rebuilds the package itself. - You’re setting list prices across a whole market rather than closing one deal — Monetizing Innovation handles that. - You need more conversations before you need better ones; Predictable Revenue manufactures the pipeline. - You’re persuading an anonymous audience through a page or an email — Influence Psychology is built for that. ## About Chris Voss Former FBI lead hostage negotiator. Chris Voss served as the FBI's lead international hostage negotiator for over two decades, handling cases from bank robberies to international kidnappings. He now teaches negotiation at Georgetown and USC. More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Voss · https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5113367 The book: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL26706016M/Never_Split_the_Difference ## Example prompts - Prepare a negotiation strategy for my enterprise contract renewal using negotiation skill _(Contract negotiation)_ - Write calibrated questions for a salary negotiation using negotiation skill _(Career)_ - Create a tactical empathy playbook for our sales team using negotiation skill _(Sales training)_ - Role-play a price negotiation and coach me through it using negotiation skill _(Practice)_ ## Frequently asked questions ### How do I install the Negotiation skill? Run `npx skills add wondelai/skills/negotiation --global`. It takes about 30 seconds and needs no account. The Negotiation skill then works in Claude, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent — anything that reads the open agentskills.io format — and your agent loads it on its own when a task calls for it. It is free and MIT-licensed, and the source is at https://github.com/wondelai/skills. ### Which book is the Negotiation skill based on? It packages *Never Split the Difference* by Chris Voss — former FBI lead hostage negotiator. The skill distils the book's method into instructions your agent follows while it works, covering tactical empathy, labeling & mirroring and calibrated questions. It sits in the Sales & Persuasion part of the library. ### What’s the actual difference between mirroring and labelling? A mirror is repeating the last one to three words your counterpart said, as a question, then staying silent. It costs nothing and almost always buys more information. A label names the emotion or dynamic you’re reading — “It seems like the timing is the real problem here.” Mirrors keep them talking; labels prove you understood, which is the part that defuses. The skill picks between them by what the conversation is doing. ### How is this different from the Influence Psychology skill? Influence Psychology is designed in advance and aimed at many people at once — a pricing page, an onboarding sequence, a testimonial block. Negotiation is live, aimed at one person whose position shifts as you speak, and useless if scripted too tightly. Cialdini gives you principles to build into a surface; Voss gives you the next thirty seconds. Sales teams tend to use both, at different points in the same deal. ### Isn’t tactical empathy just manipulation with better manners? Tactical empathy means understanding the other side’s position accurately — not agreeing with it, and not performing warmth you don’t feel. It works because it’s real: a label that misreads the room gets corrected immediately, which is itself useful. The tactics extract information and make people feel heard, and both of those serve an agreement that survives contact with their finance team. Anything you talk someone into against their interest tends not to. ### Can it help when the other side holds all the leverage? Only at the margins, and it will say so. These tactics change what you learn and what you give away; they don’t change who can afford to walk. If your alternative to this deal is genuinely bad, the honest move is to improve it first — build a second option, stretch the timeline, shrink the scope — before getting clever with calibrated questions. The techniques earn most where both sides have something to lose. ## Related - All Sales & Persuasion skills: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/sales/ - $100M Offers: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/hundred-million-offers/ - Influence Psychology: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/influence-psychology/ - Predictable Revenue: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/predictable-revenue/ - CRO Methodology: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/cro-methodology/ - Monetizing Innovation: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/monetizing-innovation/