Sequential Thinking

Sequential Thinking

Quick start

Goal: externalize a long reasoning chain when the problem is ambiguous, multi-stage, or likely to need course correction.

Primary entry point:

• mcp__sequential_thinking__sequentialthinking

Reference notes: skills/sequential-thinking/references/sequential-thinking.md

When to use it

• Complex debugging with multiple hypotheses.
• Planning or design with tradeoffs.
• Problems where you may need to revise earlier assumptions.
• Multi-step analysis where the answer is not obvious upfront.

When not to use it

• Simple factual lookups.
• Straightforward code edits with already-clear scope.
• Cases where direct execution is faster than explicit deliberation.

Workflow

1. Start with an estimated totalThoughts.
2. Record each step with increasing thoughtNumber.
3. Mark revisions or branches when you change course.
4. Stop only when the solution is actually stable.

Guardrails

• Keep thoughts decision-oriented, not verbose for its own sake.
• Revise earlier thoughts when evidence changes.
• Do not use it as a substitute for gathering facts from code or tools.

References

• Condensed notes: skills/sequential-thinking/references/sequential-thinking.md