
Systematic Tree of Thought reasoning for complex problem decomposition. This skill should be used when the user asks for "tree of thought", "systematic reasoning", "structured analysis", "multi-path evaluation", or wants to decompose a complex problem by generating and evaluating multiple solution paths before selecting the best approach. Applies four-phase reasoning: decomposition, generation, evaluation, and synthesis.
Trace justification chains to bedrock
Follow reasoning step-by-step
Spot logical errors in reasoning
Locate where a small change shifts the whole system
Match certainty to evidence strength
Generate fundamentally divergent directions from one starting point
Track, validate, and cite external sources with working URLs
Stress-test a position by building the strongest counter-case
Find defeaters that would break a conclusion
Ask a genuinely good question — or a composed set of them — in the moment, to discover, clarify, probe, or confirm, in any conversation or domain. Use when about to ask the user something or use the `AskUserQuestion` tool, when a question fell flat or one won't reach and you need a set, when the user's tone or messages signal you have drifted from what they need, or when the user wants questions phrased, generated, or sharpened — "read this spec and generate questions", "ask about the schema", "review this and ask questions", "help me understand what to ask", or to clarify a requirement or idea. Also use to judge when the better move is not a question at all — a restatement, a plain statement, silence, or asking nothing.
Structured Q&A that decomposes questions before answering
Generate APA-format citations from paper links. This skill should be used when the user asks to "cite a paper", "generate APA citations", "format references", or provides paper links (arXiv, DOI, conference URLs) for citation formatting.
Tag reasoning steps by inference type
Test synthesis for contradictions
Map what's known vs assumed vs unknown
Communicate ideas and information to others with purpose, clarity, and integrity. Ensure that artifacts are structured and phrased in a way that is mindful of their audience while avoiding AI slop patterns. Use when the user requests assistance with writing, commentary, or communication; when they point out AI slop, when they ask things like "help me say", "write for [a specific audience or context]", "polish [comments, sentences, artifacts]", or the like.
Import solutions from structurally similar problems in distant domains
Generate competing explanations for the same observations
Apply decision analysis (Howard 1966): systematically formulate and evaluate one concrete decision under uncertainty. Specifies the decision problem's four components (states of the world, available acts, the consequence of each act in each state, and the preference ordering over consequences), screens for dominance, classifies the uncertainty as risk, ambiguity, or unawareness, evaluates alternatives under the decision rule appropriate to that class, and reports sensitivity and the value of gathering information before deciding. Use when the user faces a decision and asks to "analyze this decision", "structure this decision", "map the problem space", "what kind of uncertainty is this", "should I decide now or learn more first", or "what am I actually choosing between". Applies to one decision already on the table, for a single decision maker. Output is the analysis record; theory and citations appear only on explicit request.
Break a whole into parts at its natural joints
Strip convention to irreducible truths and rebuild
Detect when further effort yields little gain
Assess how well evidence supports claims
Surface unstated assumptions at multiple levels and rank them
Runs in two modes. Seed mode when the user asks to "create a runbook", "set up an autonomous loop", "start a hardening pass", "run a refactoring loop", "focus on X and loop", "set up a cron loop", mentions FOCUS.md, or wants to decompose work into a steerable autonomous workflow — it aligns on intent and writes the durable state files. Execute mode when the user asks to "run", "continue", or "resume a runbook", to invoke execute mode against a directory, or when the named directory already holds FOCUS.md — the current session becomes the orchestrator that drives the loop, delegating all implementation to subagents. Triggers: create a runbook, autonomous loop, hardening pass, refactoring loop, cron loop, run the runbook, continue the runbook, resume the runbook, execute mode against a directory, FOCUS.md.
Implement typeclasses and their instances in TypeScript — Functor, Applicative, Monad, Traversable, Foldable — and the higher-kinded type (HKT) encoding they require. Use this skill whenever the user wants to give a custom data type typeclass instances; abstract over a type constructor or an unknown container `F`; encode higher-kinded types; work with `TypeLambda`, `Kind`, `HKT`, or `@effect/typeclass`; decide whether a typeclass is the right abstraction at all — including in a regular, non-FP codebase where it cuts against the surrounding style; or debug HKT-encoded code (inference failures, variance slots, unreadable `Kind` error messages). The skill uses Effect's HKT encoding as the substrate, but the subject is typeclasses in TypeScript generally, in any repo. It first checks whether a typeclass is warranted, then walks the brand/`TypeLambda` encoding with copy-ready templates and a catalog of standard typeclasses.
Ask a genuinely good question — or a composed set of them — in the moment, to discover, clarify, probe, or confirm, in any conversation or domain. Use when about to ask the user something or use the `AskUserQuestion` tool, when a question fell flat or one won't reach and you need a set, when the user's tone or messages signal you have drifted from what they need, or when the user wants questions phrased, generated, or sharpened — "read this spec and generate questions", "ask about the schema", "review this and ask questions", "help me understand what to ask", or to clarify a requirement or idea.
Visualize data, concepts, relations, or diagrams. Produces browser-runnable HTML charts and markdown outputs that drop into pull requests, READMEs, tickets, and chat. Use whenever the user asks to visualize anything, make a chart or diagram, plot a trend, compare numbers, show a flow or timeline, or pick the right chart type.
Ask a genuinely good question — or a composed set of them — in the moment, to discover, clarify, probe, or confirm, in any conversation or domain. Use when about to ask the user something or use the `AskUserQuestion` tool, when a question fell flat or one won't reach and you need a set, when the user's tone or messages signal you have drifted from what they need, or when the user wants questions phrased, generated, or sharpened — "read this spec and generate questions", "ask about the schema", "review this and ask questions", "help me understand what to ask", or to clarify a requirement or idea. Also use to judge when the better move is not a question at all — a restatement, a plain statement, silence, or asking nothing.
Communicate ideas and information to others with purpose, clarity, and integrity. Ensure that artifacts are structured and phrased in a way that is mindful of their audience while avoiding AI slop patterns. Use when the user requests assistance with writing, commentary, or communication; when they point out AI slop, when they ask things like "help me say", "write for [a specific audience or context]", "polish [comments, sentences, artifacts]", or the like.
Track, validate, and cite external sources with working URLs
Break a whole into parts at its natural joints
Locate where a small change shifts the whole system
Structured Q&A that decomposes questions before answering
Stress-test a position by building the strongest counter-case
Craft or refactor LLM instructions. Use when authoring or revising the prompt for an Agent or Task tool call, or when the user says "write a prompt", "prompt", "prompt an agent", "refactor this prompt", or any similar request.
Tag reasoning steps by inference type
Test synthesis for contradictions
Detect when further effort yields little gain
Match certainty to evidence strength
Map what's known vs assumed vs unknown
Spot logical errors in reasoning
Combine viewpoints into coherent whole
Turn a problem inside out to reveal hidden structure
Generate competing explanations for the same observations
Import solutions from structurally similar problems in distant domains
Find defeaters that would break a conclusion
Assess how well evidence supports claims
Surface intent before you add, change, or produce something — a claim, design, abstraction, instruction, name, config, or rule. Use this when you are about to introduce something that might already exist or might talk past what is there, when duplication or scope creep is a risk, or when what you produce needs to be clear enough for its reader to act on. Triggers: "is this already covered", "make this clearer", "why does this exist", "before I add this", "am I duplicating this", or any moment you are adding to a system you have not fully read. It directs you to read what already serves the purpose before you act, and to make your own intent legible in what you produce.
Find higher understanding through dialectic
Interactive tutoring that adapts to your pace
Visualize data, concepts, relations, or diagrams. Produces browser-runnable HTML charts and markdown outputs that drop into pull requests, READMEs, tickets, and chat. Use whenever the user asks to visualize anything, make a chart or diagram, plot a trend, compare numbers, show a flow or timeline, or pick the right chart type.
Turn a problem inside out to reveal hidden structure
Research deeply, explain progressively
Test claims by forming contrapositive
Strip convention to irreducible truths and rebuild
Generate and filter ideas into vetted options
Match certainty to evidence strength
Generate competing explanations for the same observations
Follow reasoning step-by-step
Surface unstated assumptions at multiple levels and rank them
Design, strengthen, or audit an Agent Skill. Use before building any new skill — for a researched design brief that skill-creator can build from — and whenever an existing skill needs judgment or change: it over-triggers, under-triggers, bloats its context, drifts from its sources, or needs a quality check. Triggers: "design a skill", "plan a skill before building it", "audit this skill", "review my SKILL.md", "strengthen this skill", "refactor this skill", "is this skill well built", or any request to evaluate or improve how a skill routes, decides, or spends context. Packaging and eval mechanics stay with skill-creator; use this to decide what to build and to verify fit.
Adaptive multi-phase reasoning for complex problems
Trace justification chains to bedrock
Examine whether the inquiry is aimed at the right target
Strip convention to irreducible truths and rebuild
Test claims by forming contrapositive
Test a claim or framing at its edges and extremes
Use Socratic questioning to reveal assumptions
Research deeply, explain progressively
Imagine catastrophic failure and work backwards to prevent it
Adaptive multi-phase reasoning for complex problems
Find higher understanding through dialectic
Apply decision analysis (Howard 1966): systematically formulate and evaluate one concrete decision under uncertainty. Specifies the decision problem's four components (states of the world, available acts, the consequence of each act in each state, and the preference ordering over consequences), screens for dominance, classifies the uncertainty as risk, ambiguity, or unawareness, evaluates alternatives under the decision rule appropriate to that class, and reports sensitivity and the value of gathering information before deciding. Use when the user faces a decision and asks to "analyze this decision", "structure this decision", "map the problem space", "what kind of uncertainty is this", "should I decide now or learn more first", or "what am I actually choosing between". Applies to one decision already on the table, for a single decision maker. Output is the analysis record; theory and citations appear only on explicit request.
Tile the space of possible futures and evaluate strategies across the tiles. Blends part-whole decomposition with tree and graph of thought. This skill should be used when the user asks "what if", "what could happen if", "evaluate possible futures", "map the scenarios", "explore how this could play out", "compare futures", "stress-test this plan against the future", or faces a decision whose outcome hinges on unresolved uncertainties. Ends with a single reasoned recommendation plus the conditions that would flip it.
Distributed navigation system for multi-file pipelines and processes. Creates compact, grep-friendly waypoint markers that orient readers within complex cross-file workflows — each file carries its own ID, role, adjacent nodes, and a pointer to the full map. Use when asked to "point me to", "where does X begin/end", "map this pipeline", "add waypoints", "trace this process", or when working with processes spanning many files that need discoverability without centralized documentation that drifts.
Open the possibility space through curiosity-driven questioning
Design, strengthen, or audit an Agent Skill. Use before building any new skill — for a researched design brief that skill-creator can build from — and whenever an existing skill needs judgment or change: it over-triggers, under-triggers, bloats its context, drifts from its sources, or needs a quality check. Triggers: "design a skill", "plan a skill before building it", "audit this skill", "review my SKILL.md", "strengthen this skill", "refactor this skill", "is this skill well built", or any request to evaluate or improve how a skill routes, decides, or spends context. Packaging and eval mechanics stay with skill-creator; use this to decide what to build and to verify fit.
Generate fundamentally divergent directions from one starting point
Surface unstated assumptions at multiple levels and rank them
Generate and filter ideas into vetted options
Find defeaters that would break a conclusion
Ask a genuinely good question — or a composed set of them — in the moment, to discover, clarify, probe, or confirm, in any conversation or domain. Use when about to ask the user something or use the `AskUserQuestion` tool, when a question fell flat or one won't reach and you need a set, when the user's tone or messages signal you have drifted from what they need, or when the user wants questions phrased, generated, or sharpened — "read this spec and generate questions", "ask about the schema", "review this and ask questions", "help me understand what to ask", or to clarify a requirement or idea. Also use to judge when the better move is not a question at all — a restatement, a plain statement, silence, or asking nothing.
Test synthesis for contradictions
Exploration skill for problems that need thinking before solving. Assesses a problem's shape and applies a sequence of exploration techniques — producing questions, reframings, structural maps, and new angles. Use when asked to "think about this", "help me explore", "what am I missing", "I'm stuck", "help me understand this problem", "ponder this", "what should I consider", "help me think through this", or when a problem needs reframing, assumption-surfacing, or systematic questioning before action. Also use when the user describes a vague idea, faces a decision fork, or expresses uncertainty about what they don't know.
Verify epistemic integrity by aligning claims with evidence
Move up, down, and sideways between levels of abstraction
Interactive tutoring that adapts to your pace
Tile the space of possible futures and evaluate strategies across the tiles. Blends part-whole decomposition with tree and graph of thought. This skill should be used when the user asks "what if", "what could happen if", "evaluate possible futures", "map the scenarios", "explore how this could play out", "compare futures", "stress-test this plan against the future", or faces a decision whose outcome hinges on unresolved uncertainties. Ends with a single reasoned recommendation plus the conditions that would flip it.
Inhabit contrasting frames to see what one viewpoint misses
Surface intent before you add, change, or produce something — a claim, design, abstraction, instruction, name, config, or rule. Use this when you are about to introduce something that might already exist or might talk past what is there, when duplication or scope creep is a risk, or when what you produce needs to be clear enough for its reader to act on. Triggers: "is this already covered", "make this clearer", "why does this exist", "before I add this", "am I duplicating this", or any moment you are adding to a system you have not fully read. It directs you to read what already serves the purpose before you act, and to make your own intent legible in what you produce.
Systematic Tree of Thought reasoning for complex problem decomposition. This skill should be used when the user asks for "tree of thought", "systematic reasoning", "structured analysis", "multi-path evaluation", or wants to decompose a complex problem by generating and evaluating multiple solution paths before selecting the best approach. Applies four-phase reasoning: decomposition, generation, evaluation, and synthesis.
Assess how well evidence supports claims
Stress-test a position by building the strongest counter-case
Generate fundamentally divergent directions from one starting point
Structured Q&A that decomposes questions before answering
Map what's known vs assumed vs unknown
Tag reasoning steps by inference type
Generate APA-format citations from paper links. This skill should be used when the user asks to "cite a paper", "generate APA citations", "format references", or provides paper links (arXiv, DOI, conference URLs) for citation formatting.
Import solutions from structurally similar problems in distant domains
Track, validate, and cite external sources with working URLs
Communicate ideas and information to others with purpose, clarity, and integrity. Ensure that artifacts are structured and phrased in a way that is mindful of their audience while avoiding AI slop patterns. Use when the user requests assistance with writing, commentary, or communication; when they point out AI slop, when they ask things like "help me say", "write for [a specific audience or context]", "polish [comments, sentences, artifacts]", or the like.
Apply decision analysis (Howard 1966): systematically formulate and evaluate one concrete decision under uncertainty. Specifies the decision problem's four components (states of the world, available acts, the consequence of each act in each state, and the preference ordering over consequences), screens for dominance, classifies the uncertainty as risk, ambiguity, or unawareness, evaluates alternatives under the decision rule appropriate to that class, and reports sensitivity and the value of gathering information before deciding. Use when the user faces a decision and asks to "analyze this decision", "structure this decision", "map the problem space", "what kind of uncertainty is this", "should I decide now or learn more first", or "what am I actually choosing between". Applies to one decision already on the table, for a single decision maker. Output is the analysis record; theory and citations appear only on explicit request.
Break a whole into parts at its natural joints
Spot logical errors in reasoning
Detect when further effort yields little gain
Locate where a small change shifts the whole system
Combine viewpoints into coherent whole
Verify epistemic integrity by aligning claims with evidence
Exploration skill for problems that need thinking before solving. Assesses a problem's shape and applies a sequence of exploration techniques — producing questions, reframings, structural maps, and new angles. Use when asked to "think about this", "help me explore", "what am I missing", "I'm stuck", "help me understand this problem", "ponder this", "what should I consider", "help me think through this", or when a problem needs reframing, assumption-surfacing, or systematic questioning before action. Also use when the user describes a vague idea, faces a decision fork, or expresses uncertainty about what they don't know.
Test a claim or framing at its edges and extremes
Craft or refactor LLM instructions. Use when authoring or revising the prompt for an Agent or Task tool call, or when the user says "write a prompt", "prompt", "prompt an agent", "refactor this prompt", or any similar request.
Use Socratic questioning to reveal assumptions
Imagine catastrophic failure and work backwards to prevent it
Examine whether the inquiry is aimed at the right target
Apply the SCAMPER creative thinking technique for structured ideation. This skill should be used when the user asks to "brainstorm ideas", "use SCAMPER", "creative thinking", or wants to explore a problem through systematic creative exploration.
Move up, down, and sideways between levels of abstraction
Inhabit contrasting frames to see what one viewpoint misses
Use when the user asks for help preparing for a German government appointment on visa, residency, or citizenship — Fiktionsbescheinigung, Aufenthaltserlaubnis, EU Blue Card, Approbation / Berufserlaubnis (non-EU doctors), Einbürgerung, the Einbürgerungstest, national visa interviews at a German embassy, residence permit renewals, family reunification, the Chancenkarte, or any Ausländerbehörde / LEA / Einbürgerungsbehörde / Standesamt appointment. Triggers: "Fiktionsbescheinigung", "Aufenthaltserlaubnis", "Blue Card", "Approbation", "Einbürgerung", "Einbürgerungstest", "LEA appointment", "Ausländerbehörde", "German residence permit", "German citizenship", "moving to Germany paperwork". Researches every answer live and cites every factual claim with a URL; never relies on training data for fees, thresholds, deadlines, or document lists. Speaks in a warm, conversational voice modelled on Erin Hannon: earnest, gently encouraging, never glib.
Expert persona collaboration for structured problem analysis. This skill should be used when the user asks to "assemble a team", "team analysis", "expert panel", "persona collaboration", or wants multiple expert perspectives applied to a problem. Creates a team of 3-8 expert personas who collaboratively analyze problem spaces through phased conversation: situation analysis, team selection, discussion, reasoning, and optional implementation.
Write idiomatic BATS tests for bash and zsh shell scripts. Use when writing new tests, adding tests to existing shell projects, reviewing test quality, running tests after code changes, or when the user asks to "write tests", "add tests", "test this script/function", "run tests", or "create a test file". Also triggers on: .bats files, bats-assert, bats-file, shell test organization, zunit, or testing shell plugins/commands/functions. Covers BATS-core patterns, assertions, mocking, isolation, zsh-specific testing, and CI integration.
Scaffold a production-grade bash script from a curated template. Use whenever the user asks to "scaffold a bash script", "start a new shell script", "write a shell script for X", "give me a bash script template", "bootstrap a .sh", "I need a maintainable bash script", or describes any task they intend to automate in bash from scratch — even when they don't explicitly say "scaffold".
Written communication skill with 16 techniques across 5 categories and 5 structured workflows. Use when asked to "improve my writing", "refine this prose", "make this clearer", "proofread this", "clean this up", "edit this", "check my writing", "make this as good as it can be", "full refinement", "polish this thoroughly", "help me write this", "draft this for me", "help me compose", "adapt this for a US audience", "translate the argument structure", "why does my writing feel foreign?", "help me say this", "I can't find the right words", "in [language] we say...", or when any writing improvement, composition, structural adaptation, or cross-lingual expression work is needed.
CLI development reference grounded in https://clig.dev. Use this skill whenever designing, reviewing, modifying, or specifying a command-line interface — drafting flags or subcommands, writing help text, choosing exit codes or error output, picking environment variables, choosing config file locations, naming a binary, deciding stdout vs stderr, planning interactivity or progress output, reviewing CLI source code in pull requests, writing CLI specs or RFCs, or doing any development, design, or QA-adjacent work that touches CLI surface. The skill provides a sitemap of clig.dev anchors plus local reference copies of every guideline section, and instructs the agent to pull live content from clig.dev before citing rules so recommendations stay current.
Create research-backed, spec-compliant Agent Skills with cited references, workflow templates, and anti-hallucination guardrails. Use when asked to "create a skill", "make a new skill", "build a skill for X", or when designing specialized Claude capabilities.
Parse concise pipeline instructions into ordered task sequences and execute them with accumulating context. This skill should be used when the user asks to "run a sequence", "chain skills together", "pipeline these steps", "seq", types "/seq", or provides arrow-separated (via the arrow symbol), bulleted, or prose-described multi-step instructions that mix skills, agents, and natural-language tasks.
Multi-agent investigation pipeline for deep research questions. Use when a question requires searching across multiple sources (codebase, web, docs, academic), synthesizing findings, and validating citations. Triggered by: "rabbit hole [topic]", "deep dive into [topic]", or any complex research question where a single search would be insufficient. Readonly — never modifies files. Always cites sources. Always validates citations.
Evaluate Agent Skill directories against the Agent Skills Specification and quality criteria. This skill should be used when the user asks to "review a skill", "audit skill compliance", "check if a skill passes", "validate skill against spec", or when verifying a skill before publishing. Produces a pass/fail report with fix instructions for each failure.
Conversational software requirements elicitation producing shaped specifications. This skill should be used when the user asks to "write a spec", "create requirements", "spec this out", "what should we build", "define the requirements", "help me think through this system", "spec out a feature", "shape this project", "requirements gathering", "write a pitch", "help me figure out what to build", or when a user describes a software need that requires structured requirements before implementation begins.
Manages stacked Git branches and PRs using stax (v0.27.0). This skill should be used when the user asks to "create a branch", "push changes", "rebase", "submit a PR", "sync with main", "manage stacked branches", or when any git branch, rebase, push, or PR operation could be handled by stax. Provides stax-first routing so agents default to stax over raw git for all supported operations, plus composable workflows for stacked development.
This skill should be used when the user asks to "write Flix code", "translate to Flix", "set up a Flix project", "fix Flix compiler errors", "add Java interop in Flix", or when encountering .flix files or flix.toml. Context engineering runbook providing design constraints from Flix's 41 principles, stdlib-first discipline via api.flix.dev, and anti-hallucination guidance for a language with sparse training data.
Use when the user asks for help preparing for a German government appointment on visa, residency, or citizenship — Fiktionsbescheinigung, Aufenthaltserlaubnis, EU Blue Card, Approbation / Berufserlaubnis (non-EU doctors), Einbürgerung, the Einbürgerungstest, national visa interviews at a German embassy, residence permit renewals, family reunification, the Chancenkarte, or any Ausländerbehörde / LEA / Einbürgerungsbehörde / Standesamt appointment. Triggers: "Fiktionsbescheinigung", "Aufenthaltserlaubnis", "Blue Card", "Approbation", "Einbürgerung", "Einbürgerungstest", "LEA appointment", "Ausländerbehörde", "German residence permit", "German citizenship", "moving to Germany paperwork". Researches every answer live and cites every factual claim with a URL; never relies on training data for fees, thresholds, deadlines, or document lists. Speaks in a warm, conversational voice modelled on Erin Hannon: earnest, gently encouraging, never glib.
Apply the SCAMPER creative thinking technique for structured ideation. This skill should be used when the user asks to "brainstorm ideas", "use SCAMPER", "creative thinking", or wants to explore a problem through systematic creative exploration.
Generate APA-format citations from paper links. This skill should be used when the user asks to "cite a paper", "generate APA citations", "format references", or provides paper links (arXiv, DOI, conference URLs) for citation formatting.
Apache AGE graph database extension for PostgreSQL — Cypher query syntax, agtype data types, hybrid SQL+Cypher patterns (CTEs, JOINs, parameter passing), graph schema modeling (vertices, edges, labels, properties), and performance optimization (indexing, EXPLAIN, batch loading). Use when writing Cypher queries, designing graph schemas, combining graph traversal with relational SQL, or optimizing AGE query performance — all within PostgreSQL via the AGE extension.