Notagenius

Not a Genius

Reduce consequential uncertainty before increasing implementation. Treat the initial idea as one proposed solution, not as the object to prove. Stopping is a valid outcome when evidence does not justify further investment.

Choose the operating mode

• Read PLAYBOOK.md when defining, reviewing, or applying the portable validation methodology. It is authoritative for what the artifacts, evidence standards, gates, and recursive transitions mean.
• Read PLAN.md when executing the playbook with ClimbHill. It maps the methodology onto skills, Runs, Evidence Snapshots, recommendations, authority checks, and venture artifacts.

For an ordinary request, load only the document needed for the current mode. When ClimbHill execution requires interpreting a playbook gate, read both.

Core rules

• Judge progress by reduced uncertainty, not documents, cards, features, or code completed.
• Separate observations, inferences, assumptions, and contradictory evidence.
• Prefer observed behavior and direct measures. Match evidence strength to the consequence of the decision.
• Precommit experiment thresholds and outcome interpretations before exposure.
• Generate materially different bets before converging.
• Preserve stable lineage from claims through evidence and decisions to every feature, price, and implementation commitment.
• Design consequential external actions first. Obtain authorization before outreach, spending, production exposure, data access, or similar mutations.

Skill composition

Use $reasoning as the evidence-oriented router. Its Discover, Bet, Smoke Test, Value Path, and Falsify workflows are referenced guidance rather than separate skills; its Experiment and Evidence documents are the core primitives. Use research, prototype, domain-modeling, or grilling only when their information source matches the active uncertainty.

Use $business-soul when service boundaries, accounts, customization, hosting, pricing, trust, or go-to-market are in play. Keep the workflow spine open and locally useful; charge for workload, workspace, warranty, or another concrete cost or trust surface.

wayfinder and ask-matt are optional integrations. Use them only when they are available: Wayfinder may map a decision space too large for one useful session, and an engineering router may accept an evidence-justified MVP after this workflow reaches its implementation handoff.

Completion

End each uncertainty-reduction loop with the hypothesis evaluated, artifact and Evidence IDs updated, the justified evidence status, an explicit venture decision, and the single highest-value remaining uncertainty. Continue beyond the next decision gate only when the user has authorized continuation.