# Adhd > Spawns parallel reasoning branches under different cognitive frames to explore non-obvious solutions for open-ended design, architecture, naming, and fuzzy debugging problems, then scores, clusters, and deepens the most promising ideas. - Skill: `oyi77/adhd` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add oyi77/adhd` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/oyi77/adhd/raw - Safety review: PASS (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS) - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Productivity, Integrations & APIs - Tags: Architecture, Brainstorming, Cognitive Frames, Debugging, Ideation, Parallel Reasoning, design - License: MIT - Author: oyi77 (https://skillmd.com/u/oyi77) - Updated: 2026-08-22 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/oyi77/adhd --- persona: name: "Udit Akhouri" title: "The Divergent Ideation Architect" expertise: ['Parallel Reasoning Architectures', 'Cognitive Frames', 'Agent Skill Design', 'Premature Convergence'] philosophy: "The first three answers are the ones a senior engineer gives in thirty seconds. Correct. Forgettable. The interesting answers live past number three." credentials: ['Author of ADHD preprint', 'Creator of adhdstack.github.io', 'MIT-licensed open source'] principles: ['Isolate before converge', 'Generator and critic must never mix', 'Structure is half the value', 'Expensive — gate before use'] # ADHD — Parallel Divergent Ideation **Upstream:** [github.com/UditAkhourii/adhd](https://github.com/UditAkhourii/adhd) **License:** MIT **Preprint:** [adhdstack.github.io](https://adhdstack.github.io/) Stop picking the textbook answer. This skill forces the agent to walk into the awkward middle where non-obvious solutions live. --- ## When to Use **Trigger phrases:** - "/adhd" - "ADHD mode" - "use parallel ideation" - "brainstorm this" - "give me a few ways to..." - "think outside the box on this" **Use when:** - Architecture decisions where the obvious answer may not be best - API/SDK surface design (naming, ergonomics, DX tradeoffs) - Naming things (products, features, variables, endpoints) - Fuzzy debugging with no known root cause - Open-ended strategy or positioning - Schema / data model design **Don't use for:** - Syntax lookups ("what's the Python equivalent of...") - Bugs with a known root cause - Any question with one canonical answer - Low-stakes decisions ("what color should this button be?") - When the user says "quick", "standard", "canonical", "textbook", or "just" --- ## Anti-Rationalization Table | Excuse | Reality | Rule | |--------|---------|------| | "Parallel branches waste tokens" | Divergent thinking finds better solutions than single-path | The cost of a bad architecture exceeds parallel exploration cost | | "I can just think harder" | Cognitive biases blind single-threaded reasoning | Structured parallel frames force coverage of blind spots | | "Naming isn't a design problem" | Names reveal conceptual clarity; bad names = bad abstractions | Treat naming as API design — it is | **Trigger phrases:** - "/adhd" - "ADHD mode" - "use parallel ideation" - "brainstorm this" - "give me a few ways to..." - "think outside the box on this" **Use when:** - Architecture decisions where the obvious answer may not be best - API/SDK surface design (naming, ergonomics, DX tradeoffs) - Naming things (products, features, variables, endpoints) - Fuzzy debugging with no known root cause - Open-ended strategy or positioning - Schema / data model design **Don't use for:** - Syntax lookups ("what's the Python equivalent of...") - Bugs with a known root cause - Any question with one canonical answer - Low-stakes decisions ("what color should this button be?") - When the user says "quick", "standard", "canonical", "textbook", or "just" --- ## How to Use 1. **Confirm fit** — Check the task against the trigger phrases and "Use when" list; bail if it hits "Don't use for" 2. **Enter The Loop** — Run the parallel ideation loop below (Diverge → Focus), phases gate on their own inputs 3. **Apply cognitive frames** — Use the frames section to stretch or prune candidate directions 4. **Pick and commit** — Converge on one direction and exit the loop; do not re-open decisions without new information 5. **Verify** — Run the Verification Checklist before shipping the chosen design --- ## Pre-flight Gate This skill is expensive (~5–10× a single answer). Run this gate before proceeding. **Step 1. Explicit invocation.** If the user typed `/adhd` or explicitly asked for ADHD mode, **skip** the rest of the gate and go straight to Phase 1. **Step 2. Self-judge.** Ask yourself three questions. If any answer is **no**, abort. 1. **Open-ended?** Would a senior engineer give multiple viable answers, or is there one canonical answer? 2. **High-stakes?** Is the cost of the obvious answer being wrong actually high? 3. **Open phrasing?** Did the user avoid words like "quick", "standard", "canonical", "textbook", "just"? If all three pass, proceed to Phase 1. Otherwise, answer directly. Optionally add: *"If you want wider exploration under parallel cognitive frames with trap detection, run `/adhd `."* --- ## The Loop Two strict phases. **Do not mix them** — the critic strangles the generator. ### Phase 1 — Diverge (no critic) 1. **Pick 5 cognitive frames** from the table below. Bias toward engineering tags for code problems. Always include at least one wild frame. 2. **Spawn 5 parallel isolated branches.** Each gets only: - The problem P - Any context the user provided - The chosen frame's vantage prompt - A system instruction that forbids evaluation > You are in DIVERGENT mode — a generator, not a critic. > Generate 6 short distinct ideas under this frame. Each idea is one > phrase or one sentence. Do not evaluate. Do not rank. Do not hedge. > The first three obvious answers everyone would give are banned. > Push past them into the awkward middle. > Output a JSON array only: [{"text": "...", "rationale": "..."}, ...] 3. **Critical invariant:** Branches must be parallel and isolated. Do NOT serialize them. Do NOT pass one branch's output to another. Branches that see each other anchor each other — the whole method collapses to a wider single thought. ### Phase 2 — Focus (critic on) 1. **Score.** Rate each idea 0–10 on: - **Novelty** (distance from the obvious default) - **Viability** (could it actually ship) - **Fit** (does it address the stated problem) Flag any attractive-looking trap with a one-line reason. 2. **Cluster.** Group into 3–6 clusters by underlying angle, not surface keywords. Label by angle: "remove-the-server plays", "cache-shaped plays", "race-multiple-backends plays". 3. **Deepen the top 3.** Rank by weighted score (Novelty 0.35 + Viability 0.40 + Fit 0.25), exclude traps, take top 3. For each: - 4–8 sentence sketch of how it works - The load-bearing risk - The first concrete step a builder would take - 3–5 child ideas (variations, hybrids, unlocks) > You are in FOCUS mode. Take one promising idea and connect dots. > Sketch how it would actually work in 4–8 sentences. Name the > load-bearing risk. Name the first concrete step a coder would take. > Then generate 3–5 sub-ideas that branch off. Output JSON only. --- ## Cognitive Frames Pick 5 per run. For code problems: 4 tagged `code`/`design` + 1 tagged `wild`. | Frame | Vantage Prompt | Tags | |-------|---------------|------| | **hardware engineer** | You think in latency, memory layout, and physical constraints. Re-ask this as a hardware/firmware problem. What does the bus topology, cache, timing budget tell you? | code, wild | | **regulator** | You audit systems for compliance and failure modes. What must be provable, traceable, or refusable here? | design, general | | **10-year-old** | You are a curious 10 year old who has never seen software. Describe naive but unencumbered approaches. Ignore convention. | general, wild | | **competitor trying to break it** | You are a hostile competitor or attacker. Generate approaches that exploit, fail, or sabotage the obvious solution. Then invert into ideas. | code, design | | **biology** | Transplant a mechanism from biology (immune systems, neural plasticity, cell signaling, evolution, gut flora). Force-fit it onto this engineering problem. | code, wild | | **logistics** | Steal mechanisms from logistics: queues, batching, just-in-time, hub-and-spoke, returns, last-mile. Apply them literally. | code, design | | **game design** | Approach this as a game designer. What are the loops, rewards, friction, save-states, speedrun tricks? Treat the user as a player. | design, general | | **markets** | Treat the problem as a market. Buyers, sellers, market-makers. What does an auction, a futures contract, a clearing house look like here? | design, wild | | **inversion** | Ask the OPPOSITE question. If goal is X, brainstorm how to guarantee NOT X. Then negate each answer back. | code, design, general | | **extreme: $0 budget, 1 hour** | No money, no team, one hour. What is the crudest version that still does the load-bearing thing? | code, general | | **extreme: infinite budget, 10 years** | Infinite compute, infinite engineers, a decade. What is the maximalist version? | design, wild | | **remove the load-bearing assumption** | Name the thing everyone treats as fixed (framework, database, request-response model, network). Imagine it is gone. What is possible? | code, design, wild | | **speedrunner** | You are a speedrunner. Find glitches, skips, out-of-bounds tricks, frame-perfect shortcuts. What is the abusive-but-legal path? | code, wild | | **ant colony** | No central planner. Many dumb agents, local rules, pheromone trails. How does the problem solve itself emergently? | code, wild | | **3am on-call** | You are the on-call engineer woken at 3am when this breaks. What design would let you not get paged? | code, design | Vary picks across sessions so the same problem produces different candidate sets when re-run. --- ## Output Shape Render in this order. Structure is the point — do not collapse into prose. 1. **Brief.** One–two lines confirming the problem and any reframe used. 2. **Wide set.** Full pool grouped by cluster. Score chips: `[N7 V8 F9]` per idea. 3. **Converge.** 2–4 idea shortlist. Why each is on the list. Mark non-obvious pick with ★. List traps with one-line reasons. 4. **Focus.** 3 deepened branches: sketch, risk, first step, child ideas. 5. **Provocation.** One wildcard question that opens a new direction if nothing landed. --- ## Cost & Calibration ~10 agent calls per run (5 diverge + 1 score + 1 cluster + 3 deepen). About 5–10× single-shot. | Context | Frames × Ideas | Total | |---------|---------------|-------| | Quick naming decision | 3 × 4 | ~12 | | Default | 5 × 6 | ~30 | | High-stakes strategy | 5 × 8 | ~40 | --- ## Anti-Patterns | Anti-pattern | What it looks like | Fix | |-------------|-------------------|-----| | **Convergence disguised as divergence** | Ten variations of one idea | Check: do all share one assumption? | | **Weird-for-weird's-sake** | 30 unsorted absurdities | Always converge. Structure is half the value. | | **Walls of equally-weighted prose** | No clustering, no prioritization | Cluster, label, pull out the best. | | **Refusing to commit** | "Here are 20 ideas, you decide" | Take a position. Generate wide, converge with opinion. | | **Skipping isolation** | Simulating parallel branches sequentially | Each branch needs a fresh context. Parallel or nothing. | --- ## Verification Checklist - [ ] Pre-flight gate passed (explicit invocation or 3/3 self-judge checks) - [ ] 5 frames picked with at least 1 wild - [ ] Diverge used parallel isolated branches (not sequential) - [ ] Generator mode strictly enforced during diverge - [ ] Scoring on 3 axes with trap flags - [ ] Clusters grouped by underlying angle - [ ] Top 3 deepened with sketch, risk, first step, child ideas - [ ] Output in structured shape: brief → wide → converge → focus → provocation - [ ] Provocation included at the end --- ## References - [ADHD preprint](https://adhdstack.github.io/) — academic paper - [Upstream repo](https://github.com/UditAkhourii/adhd) - [The New Stack feature](https://thenewstack.io/claude-code-adhd/) - [Independent benchmark](https://miyagadget.page/en/blog/2026/06/03/adhd-coding-agent-skill-en/) - [Repowire integration](https://github.com/prassanna-ravishankar/repowire/pull/313) - [Han research review](https://github.com/testdouble/han/blob/adhd-swarm-research/docs/research/adhd-application-to-han.md) ## Overview Parallel divergent ideation for agents — spawns N isolated reasoning branches under different cognitive frames, then scores, clusters, prunes traps, and deepens survivors. Use for open-ended design, architecture, naming, API surface decisions. ## Process 1. **Define problem space** — Specify the open-ended decision or design challenge 2. **Spawn branches** — Launch N isolated reasoning agents with different frames 3. **Score outputs** — Evaluate each branch against quality criteria 4. **Cluster & prune** — Group similar ideas, remove cognitive traps 5. **Deepen survivors** — Run deep analysis on top candidates 6. **Synthesize** — Merge insights into final recommendation