Opportunity Cost

Opportunity Cost is an AI Engineering skill for Claude Code, published by tjboudreaux in cc-thinking-skills.

969 stars133 forkson tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsAdded 2026/08/21+1% in starsRepository updated 2026/08/07

agent-skillsai-toolsanthropicclaudeclaude-codecritical-thinkingdecision-makingfirst-principlesmental-modelsproblem-solvingsystems-thinking

Install in seconds

Install Opportunity Cost

Copy Opportunity Cost into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills/tree/main/skills/thinking-opportunity-cost ~/.claude/skills/thinking-opportunity-cost

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: skills/thinking-opportunity-cost/SKILL.md in tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/thinking-opportunity-cost
Collection: One of 25 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: AI Engineering — 2451 skills

What Opportunity Cost does

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.

Opportunity Cost is cataloged under AI Engineering on DirSkills. Opportunity Cost comes from a repository tagged agent-skills, ai-tools, anthropic, claude and claude-code.

Documentation

README

Excerpt

Opportunity Cost

Core rule: every commitment displaces its best alternative. Report both that forgone value and the net value delta; decide on the delta, not the chosen path alone.

When to Use

Allocating scarce time, headcount, budget, or attention across competing options
Feature prioritization, build-vs-buy, tech-debt vs product work
Saying yes to a large commitment that displaces other work
Comparing a bold path against polishing the status quo when windows may close

When NOT to Use

This is the opening of the README. Read the full README on GitHub.

Frequently asked about Opportunity Cost

What else does tjboudreaux publish alongside Opportunity Cost?
Opportunity Cost is one of 25 skills that DirSkills catalogs from tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include Bounded Rationality, Circle Of Competence and Effectuation. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way Opportunity Cost does, and is maintained by tjboudreaux in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills page.
How does Opportunity Cost compare to other AI Engineering skills?
Opportunity Cost ranks #1401 by stars among the 2451 AI Engineering skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Architecture Decision Records, AI-First Engineering and Agentic OS. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of Opportunity Cost against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.