Alternatives Considered

Alternatives considered

One attempt at a hard design locks in the first shape the model thought of. This produces the option set, with each option honest about where it came from.

The asymmetry that governs this skill

how and why read what exists. They can come back empty, and an empty result is informative.

This skill generates. It can always produce three plausible options, and plausibility is free. Left ungated it manufactures evidence for principle-prove-it — which is the exact failure that principle exists to stop.

So every option carries a label and the label is load-bearing:

An invented option may not decide anything until spike-and-validate turns it into a run with real output. Saying "we considered X and rejected it" about an option nobody ran is a false claim about the record.

Step 1. Bound the decision

State in one line: what is being chosen, and what makes it expensive to reverse. A decision that is cheap to reverse does not need this skill — make it, and move on.

Pull Avoid from why if it ran. Options already tried and failed are considered with a citation, not fresh ideas.

Step 2. Fan out

2–4 subagents, spawned in one message, each given the same brief and a different constraint to optimize for (fewest moving parts, easiest to delete later, best for the caller, cheapest to migrate). Different constraints, not different phrasings — same-brief subagents converge.

Each returns rows in the shape at corpus/skills/principle-prove-it/references/finding-shape.md, with grounding set to invented unless it can cite where the option was already weighed.

Give each one its own worktree if it writes anything. Scope wording is not filesystem isolation.

Step 3. Merge into an option set

For each surviving option:

• Shape — what the caller writes, first. Then types and boundaries.
• Label — considered with citation, or invented.
• Cost to reverse — the real question behind most of these decisions.
• What would kill it — the check that would rule it out. This line is the spike brief.

Include the status quo as an option. It is considered by definition and frequently wins.

Step 4. Route

• All options considered → decide now, cite the record.
• The leading option is invented and expensive to reverse → spike-and-validate before committing.
• Subagents disagree on which constraint matters → that is the real decision. Surface it instead of picking quietly.

Do not

• Pad the set. Two real options beat four where two are strawmen.
• Present an invented option as prior art.
• Run this on a reversible decision.