tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

Bounded Rationality helps you set a clear sufficiency threshold before searching, then stop at the first option that meets it. Use it for open-ended comparisons or investigations with limited time or context.

Circle Of Competence checks whether a claim is grounded before answering. Use it to fetch evidence, mark uncertainty, or abstain when a specific fact is unverified and wrongness would matter.

Effectuation starts from available means and an affordable loss cap when outcomes are too uncertain to forecast. Use it to choose controllable actions, seek real commitments, and let the goal emerge from what becomes possible.

First Principles strips unsupported assumptions from a problem, keeps only independently supported constraints, and rebuilds the simplest solution. Use it when a limit seems fixed by convention, pricing, or precedent instead of physics or measured need.

Five Whys Plus builds an evidence-linked causal chain from a localized fault to an actionable systemic root. Use it when the proximate cause is known but you need to prevent recurrence and verify which enabling conditions made it possible.

Jobs To Be Done Thinking helps decide what to build, cut, or reposition by framing the user's circumstance, desired progress, and competing workarounds. It is used when adoption is unclear or a shipped feature is underperforming.

Kepner-Tregoe Analysis structures problem diagnosis with IS/IS-NOT contrasts and decision analysis with MUSTs, WANTs, and adverse-consequence checks. Use it for selective defects or high-stakes option choices.

Lindy Effect helps choose among non-perishable technologies or practices by using survival age as a prior and checking for domain drift. Use it when long-term relevance matters more than short-term novelty.

Map Territory checks live code or data when docs, tests, metrics, or assumptions conflict with observed behavior. Use it to confirm whether the current territory matches the map before making a decision.

Margin Of Safety helps size a buffer when provisioning, setting limits, or making commitments under uncertainty. Use it when underestimation has asymmetric downside and you need to commit a number with explicit margin.

Model Combination sequences 2–3 complementary mental models when one model leaves a material blind spot on a multi-domain or high-stakes problem. It is used to assign distinct roles, set a conflict rule, and synthesize once.

Model Router maps a task’s domain and problem type to NONE or one primary thinking skill, with up to three complementary skills only when needed. Use it when the right analytical frame is unclear or several catalog skills seem plausible.

OODA Loop helps you make reversible decisions under time pressure by cycling Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act at about 70% confidence. Use it for incidents, intermittent failures, or other changing situations where fast re-observation matters.

Opportunity Cost helps compare a commitment against the best alternative use of the same time, money, or attention. Use it when deciding whether a choice creates more value than what it displaces.

Pre-Mortem Analysis assumes a plan has already failed and works backward to identify concrete causes. Use it before kickoff, launch, or other high-risk commitments to turn risks into mitigations and verification gates.

Probabilistic Thinking helps you forecast, estimate, and size risk with base rates, ranges, and explicit prior-to-posterior updates. Use it when a single confident number would be misleading or when new evidence should shift an estimate.

Red Team helps you assess code, auth, APIs, and infrastructure you are authorized to test. It models attacker paths and keeps only findings with a reproducible exploit and verified mitigation.

Reversibility helps you classify a decision by how costly it is to undo, so cheap-to-reverse choices can move fast and high-lock-in choices get more deliberate treatment. Use it when a decision could be staged, piloted, or redesigned to preserve options.

Scientific Method ranks competing falsifiable causes for a symptom and runs the cheapest observation that best separates them. Use it to localize bugs, incidents, or anomalies before fixing.

Second-Order Consequences traces immediate and delayed effects of a change across actors, incentives, and scale before you commit. Use it for strategy, policy, architecture, or any choice where the obvious fix may backfire later.

Socratic Questioning asks the few load-bearing questions needed when a request is vague, assumption-laden, or obvious. Use it to expose hidden requirements before building, debugging, or committing to a plan.

Steel-Manning builds the strongest faithful case against a proposal before you accept or reject it. Use it in design reviews or decisions where trade-offs matter and you want agreement conditions before updating or reaffirming.

Theory Of Constraints identifies the single binding stage in a throughput-limited system and guides exploit, subordinate, elevate, then recheck. Use it when one step dominates latency or output and local fixes elsewhere won't help.

Thinking Cynefin classifies a problem by cause-effect domain before choosing how to respond. Use it when the right mode is unclear, a method keeps failing, or a mixed problem needs decomposition first.

Thinking Systems maps boundary, stocks and flows, feedback loops, and delays when behavior emerges across components. Use it to find structural drivers and rank higher-leverage interventions with a side-effect check.