Structured Thinking Skills
Choose and apply explicit reasoning procedures for decisions and difficult problems.
The catalog covers diagnosis, systems, uncertainty, risk, strategy, innovation, and execution through models such as first principles, scientific testing, OODA, and pre-mortems.
Use cases
- Diagnose causes and compare competing explanations
- Evaluate a risky or reversible decision
- Develop strategy and test an idea
How to use
Provide the decision and its evidence, then use the model router to select a fitting frame or combination. Follow each model’s procedure and preserve its assumptions and output.
Skills
thinking-bounded-rationality
Use when search or investigation could run forever. Set an explicit good-enough threshold first, then stop at the first option that clears it.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-circle-of-competence
Use when a specific claim may lack grounding. Check evidence boundary, size wrongness cost, then answer, fetch, or abstain — never confabulate.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-cynefin
When the right response mode is unclear, classify the cause-effect domain first; decompose disorder.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-effectuation
Under genuine uncertainty with no reliable forecast, inventory means, cap downside at affordable loss, act for commitments, and let goals emerge from controllable moves.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-first-principles
When a constraint is treated as fixed, separate physics from convention, keep only independently supported primitives, and rebuild the simplest solution that satisfies real constraints.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-five-whys-plus
When a fault is localized and the proximate cause is known but the systemic root is not, chain evidence-linked whys with a counterfactual stop and a countermeasure.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-jobs-to-be-done
Deciding what to build or why adoption fails. Recover the progress users hire a solution for under a circumstance, then rank by outcome and competing workarounds.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-kepner-tregoe
Use when a selective defect needs IS/IS-NOT difference analysis or a consequential option choice needs must/want weighting and adverse-consequence comparison.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-lindy-effect
Use when longevity of a non-perishable option matters. Treat survival duration as a remaining-life prior, then check domain drift before favoring the proven.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-map-territory
When a claim, doc, test, metric, or assumption conflicts with observed behavior, stop theorizing from the map and verify the live code or data; let territory overrule.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-margin-of-safety
When provisioning, setting a limit, or committing an estimate under uncertainty, size a buffer to residual error and the cost of breach—not to the optimistic edge.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-model-combination
When one mental model leaves a material blind spot on a multi-domain or high-stakes problem, sequence complementary models with named roles and a conflict rule.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-model-router
When unsure which thinking skill fits, map domain and problem type, then return NONE or one primary skill by default (at most three complementary).
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-ooda
Use under time pressure when the situation is still changing and you must act before certainty — cycle Observe→Orient→Decide→Act on ~70% confidence, then re-observe.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-opportunity-cost
Before committing scarce time, people, or money, name the best forgone use of those resources and the value delta of the chosen path versus that alternative.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-pre-mortem
Before committing to a plan or launch, assume it already failed and reason backward through concrete causes — convert failure paths into mitigations, gates, and stop checks.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-probabilistic
Use when forecasting, estimating, or sizing risk — anchor on base rates, give ranges, update prior→likelihood→posterior on evidence, and factor unmeasured quantities into order-of-magnitude bounds.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-red-team
For authorized security review of code, auth, or APIs you control, model the attacker, map the attack surface, and report only findings with a reproducible exploit path and verified mitigation.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-reversibility
Before heavy deliberation, classify the decision as cheap or costly to undo; decide two-way doors fast and stage one-way doors to preserve options.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-scientific-method
When a symptom has several plausible causes, rank falsifiable hypotheses and run the cheapest discriminating observation first; prefer least-assumptive survivors only after evidence fit.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-second-order
When a change has effects past the immediate fix—incentives, scale, feedback—trace consequence chains with timing and probability before committing.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-socratic
When a request is vague, assumption-laden, or "obvious," ask the few load-bearing questions that expose hidden requirements before building or committing.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-steel-manning
Before rejecting a proposal or reflexively agreeing, build the strongest faithful opposing case, state agreement conditions, then update or reaffirm.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-systems
When behavior is emergent across components—fixes elsewhere break, loops/delays dominate—map boundary, stocks/flows, feedback, archetypes, then rank leverage.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-theory-of-constraints
When throughput or latency is pipeline-limited, identify the single binding constraint and exploit, subordinate, elevate, then recheck—ignore non-constraints.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-thought-experiment
When a real test is too rare, large, or irreversible, run a controlled counterfactual: isolate one variable, fix conditions, trace the mechanistic chain, and bound what the result implies.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-triz
When two design requirements seem mutually exclusive, name the contradiction, separate conflicting states, then invent a concrete no-compromise resolution.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skillsthinking-via-negativa
Use when the reflex is to add a feature, layer, or process. Prefer removing harmful or nonessential elements first, with an irreversibility guard before deletion.
tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills