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- ▌ S4h Emotional Resistance Diagnosis · human-avatarDiagnoses why people are resisting — finding what's underneath the pushback. Resistance is information, not obstruction; it always has a source. TRIGGERS: 'why are they resisting', 'diagnose the pushback', 'they won't get on board', 'people aren't buying in', 'resistance diagnosis'.
- ▌ S4h Probability Scenario Weighting · human-avatarAssigns explicit probabilities to distinct scenarios before making a decision. Use when asked to 'assign probabilities', 'scenario weighting', 'how likely is each outcome', 'quantify the uncertainty', or 'probability distribution'.
- ▌ S4h Sensory Structured Observation · human-avatarApplies disciplined observation to a situation — suspending interpretation to see what's actually there before deciding what it means. Triggers: 'observe this carefully', 'structured observation', 'what do you actually see', 'suspend interpretation', 'look more carefully'.
- ▌ S4h Communication Audience Modeling · human-avatarMaps what the audience currently believes, actually cares about, and fears before communicating — because communication fails at the receiver, not the sender. Triggers: 'model the audience', 'audience analysis', 'who am I talking to', 'what do they care about', 'why aren't they getting it'.
- ▌ S4h Communication Objection Mapping · human-avatarMaps likely objections before delivering a proposal — objections that are anticipated feel addressed; objections that land as surprises derail. Triggers: 'anticipate objections', 'what will they push back on', 'steelman the opposition', 'prepare for resistance', 'objection mapping'.
- ▌ S4h Creativity Assumption Excavator · human-avatarSurface and challenge the hidden assumptions in any problem, plan, or framing. Use when the user feels stuck despite trying multiple approaches, a problem seems intractable, a plan keeps failing for unclear reasons, something 'obvious' keeps producing unexpected results, or before using any other creative thinking tool when the problem itself might be wrongly framed. This is the prerequisite skill — run it when the ground itself might be wrong.
- ▌ S4h Decision Reversibility Analysis · human-avatarCategorises a decision by reversibility and applies the appropriate level of process rigour. Triggers: 'is this reversible', 'how much should I think about this', 'one-way door', 'two-way door', 'decision type', 'how committed is this'.
- ▌ S4h Probability Base Rate Anchoring · human-avatarAnchors estimates in historical base rates before adjusting for specific factors. Use when asked 'what's the base rate', 'am I being too optimistic', 'outside view', 'reference class', 'how often does this actually happen', or 'historical frequency'.
- ▌ S4h Investigation Counter Hypothesis · human-avatarGenerates the best alternative explanations for the same observations. Use when you have a claim or explanation and want to know whether something else could explain the evidence just as well — 'could there be another explanation', 'what else could cause this', 'am I sure this isn't something else', 'steel-man the alternative', 'what would a skeptic say', 'rival hypotheses'.
- ▌ S4h Creativity Plus Minus Interesting · human-avatarApply Edward de Bono's Plus/Minus/Interesting (PMI) tool for balanced evaluation of any idea, proposal, plan, or decision. Use when the user wants to evaluate something fairly, is tempted to immediately accept or reject an idea, needs to think through pros and cons more carefully, or wants to avoid snap judgments. Plus/Minus/Interesting is the antidote to confirmation bias in evaluation.
- ▌ S4h Investigation Claim Decomposition · human-avatarBreaks a complex claim into its smallest independently verifiable parts, classifies each sub-claim, and identifies which parts carry the most logical load. Use when a claim feels too big to verify as a unit — 'what exactly is this claiming', 'break this down', 'what are the hidden assumptions in this statement', 'this seems like multiple claims at once', 'what would I need to verify to believe this'.
- ▌ S4h Probability Confidence Calibration · human-avatarTests whether stated confidence levels match available evidence — catching overconfidence and underconfidence. Use when asked to 'calibrate my confidence', 'am I overconfident', 'confidence check', 'how sure should I be', or 'is this as certain as it seems'.
- ▌ S4h Probability Expected Value Calculation · human-avatarCalculates expected value to compare options under uncertainty. Use when asked about 'expected value', 'is this risk worth taking', 'EV calculation', 'compare these options', 'worth the risk', or 'asymmetric risk'.
- ▌ S4h Psychology Cognitive Biases · human-avatarDiagnose which cognitive biases are actively distorting thinking in a specific situation. Not a laundry list — a targeted diagnostic. Triggers: 'what biases are at play', 'are we thinking clearly', 'what am I missing', 'bias check', 'cognitive bias', 'am I being objective', 'are we rationalizing', 'what's distorting this decision'.
- ▌ S4h Systems Emergence Detection · human-avatarIdentifies system-level properties that exist nowhere in any individual component. Use when asked about 'emergent behavior', 'components are fine but the system isn't', 'why does the whole behave like this', or 'what creates this property'.
- ▌ S4h Writing Inconsistency Audit · human-avatarRuns four systematic passes to identify timeline errors, character logic violations, world-rule breaks, and physical continuity errors. Use when a manuscript has contradictions, continuity problems, or logic violations. Triggers: 'there are contradictions', 'continuity errors', 'inconsistency check', 'the character shouldn't know that', 'timeline doesn't add up', 'continuity audit', 'inconsistencies in the manuscript'.
- ▌ S4h Analogy Perspective Shifting · human-avatarApproaches a problem from completely different fields to break the assumption blindness that comes from domain expertise. Triggers: 'fresh eyes', 'outside perspective', 'what would a [different expert] say', 'beginner's mind', 'approach from another field'.
- ▌ S4h Emotional Motivation Mapping · human-avatarMaps what genuinely drives different people — beyond stated reasons and job descriptions. Use when incentives seem misaligned or individual behaviour is hard to predict. TRIGGERS: 'what motivates them', 'motivation map', 'why are they behaving like this', 'what drives this person', 'understand the incentives'.
- ▌ S4h Epistemology Knowledge Types · human-avatarMaps what kind of knowing is actually in play for a claim or question. Distinguishes a priori from a posteriori knowledge; propositional (knowing that) from procedural (knowing how) from acquaintance (knowing of); and knowledge sourced from perception, inference, testimony, intuition, or memory. Use when you say 'what kind of claim is this', 'is this something we can reason our way to or do we need evidence', 'they're treating this as obvious but I don't think it is', 'is this really an empirical question', or when you need to assess what standards of justification apply before testing whether a claim is true.
- ▌ S4h Game Theory Mechanism Design · human-avatarDesigns rules and incentive systems that produce desired outcomes even when players are self-interested. Triggers: 'mechanism design', 'incentive design', 'design a system that makes people do X', 'reverse game theory', 'incentivize honest behavior', 'design rules', 'how do I get people to reveal their true preferences', 'how do I align incentives', 'the current system produces the wrong behavior'.
- ▌ S4h Historical Lesson Extraction · human-avatarExtracts the transferable principle from a specific historical case — separating the contingent surface details from the underlying rule that applies across contexts. TRIGGERS: 'what's the lesson', 'extract the lesson', 'what should we learn from this', 'generalise from this case', 'apply this to our situation'.
- ▌ S4h Investigation Evidence Audit · human-avatarEvaluates the quality, strength, and completeness of evidence for a claim. Covers evidence type hierarchy, sample quality, methodological soundness, conflicts of interest, and what's notably absent. Use when you want to know how good the evidence is — 'is this evidence strong', 'evaluate the research', 'how solid is this', 'is this just one study', 'what kind of evidence supports this', 'what's missing from the evidence'.
- ▌ S4h Resource Allocation Analysis · human-avatarDistributes limited resources across competing needs — making the trade-offs explicit rather than implicit. Triggers: 'resource allocation', 'how do we distribute this', 'competing priorities', 'trade-off analysis', 'how do we split this', 'allocation decision'.
- ▌ S4h Resource Bottleneck Analysis · human-avatarIdentifies what is actually constraining throughput — using Theory of Constraints logic: the system can only move as fast as its slowest point. Triggers: 'bottleneck analysis', 'what's actually slowing this down', 'where's the constraint', 'theory of constraints', 'find the bottleneck', 'why are we moving slowly'.
- ▌ S4h Writing Audience Calibration · human-avatarCalibrates writing for a specific reader by profiling their knowledge, concerns, and relationship to the topic — then rewriting for that reader without changing the substance. Use when content is too technical, too basic, or framed for the wrong audience. Triggers: 'write for a specific audience', 'audience calibration', 'this needs to work for non-technical readers', 'the audience isn't the right fit', 'calibrate this for', 'it's too technical / not technical enough', 'recalibrate this for'.
- ▌ S4h Aesthetic Simplicity Analysis · human-avatarFinds the simpler version while preserving what matters — not arbitrary reduction, but finding the core and discarding what is not it. TRIGGERS: 'find the simple version', 'simplify this', 'what's the essence', 'less but better', 'strip it back', 'what could we remove'.
- ▌ S4h Constraint Workaround Mapping · human-avatarFinds paths around a fixed constraint without removing it — routing around a hard limit to reach the same goal. Triggers: 'work around this', 'given this constraint', 'path around the blocker', 'how do we do this anyway', 'constrained solution'.
- ▌ S4h Creativity Other Perspectives · human-avatarApply Edward de Bono's OPS (Other People's Shoes) tool to genuinely think from other perspectives. Use when the user needs to understand how others will respond to a decision, wants to anticipate objections, is designing something for other people, is in a conflict or negotiation, or needs to check whether they've considered the people affected by a situation. OPS is structured empathy — not sentiment, but reasoning.
- ▌ S4h Epistemology Epistemic Status · human-avatarProduces an honest, rigorous calibration of what you know vs. believe vs. assume vs. hope across a domain. Assigns explicit epistemic statuses to claims and flags when high-confidence claims rest on lower-confidence foundations. Draws from the rationalist tradition of explicit epistemic labeling. Use when you say 'how certain should I be', 'what do we actually know here', 'I want an honest read of our assumptions', 'separate what we know from what we're guessing', 'give me an epistemic audit', 'I want to stop conflating confident with correct', or when producing analysis where the confidence level matters as much as the content.
- ▌ S4h Evolution Variation Selection · human-avatarApplies the variation-selection-retention triad to understand how populations and strategies adapt over time. Triggers: 'how does this evolve', 'what gets selected for', 'why do some strategies persist and others die out', 'population dynamics', 'selection pressure', 'what survives in this environment', 'who wins over time'.
- ▌ S4h Game Theory Prisoners Dilemma · human-avatarAnalyses cooperation problems where individual rationality produces collective irrationality. Triggers: 'cooperation problem', 'prisoner's dilemma', 'everyone defects even though cooperation is better', 'race to the bottom', 'should I cooperate or defect', 'why won't anyone cooperate', 'collective action failure', 'why do we all end up worse off'.
- ▌ S4h Historical Precedent Analysis · human-avatarFinds and applies genuinely similar historical situations to inform a current decision — distinguishing true precedents from superficial analogies. TRIGGERS: 'historical precedent', 'has this happened before', 'what does history say', 'find a precedent', 'what did others do in this situation'.
- ▌ S4h Identity Values Clarification · human-avatarSurfaces and tests actual operative values — distinguishing what is stated from what decisions actually reveal. Triggers: 'values clarification', 'what do we actually stand for', 'is this consistent with our values', 'values alignment check', 'test the values', 'what do our decisions reveal'.
- ▌ S4h Writing Character Development · human-avatarEngineers psychologically compelling characters by mapping want vs. need, wound, defence mechanism, and defining contradiction. Use when a character feels flat, underdeveloped, or unconvincing. Triggers: 'my character feels flat', 'character development', 'make this character feel real', 'this character isn't working', 'character work', 'how do I develop this character'.
- ▌ S4h Communication Medium Selection · human-avatarMatches the message to the right channel and format — the same content in the wrong medium loses most of its effect. Triggers: 'which channel', 'email vs meeting', 'should this be async or sync', 'medium fit', 'how should I deliver this'.
- ▌ S4h Historical Cycle Detection · human-avatarIdentifies what recurring cycle the current situation is an instance of — and where in that cycle you currently are. TRIGGERS: 'what cycle is this', 'where are we in the cycle', 'is this a bubble', 'what comes next', 'have we been here before'.
- ▌ S4h Identity Character Testing · human-avatarAsks what a person or organisation of genuine integrity would do — grounding decisions in character rather than calculation. Triggers: 'character test', 'what would a person of integrity do', 'what does this say about us', 'gut check', 'would I be proud of this', 'are we being who we want to be'.
- ▌ S4h Identity Mission Alignment · human-avatarTests whether a proposed decision is genuinely aligned with stated mission — or is rationalising a departure from it. Triggers: 'mission alignment', 'is this on mission', 'are we drifting', 'mission check', 'does this serve our purpose', 'on brand'.
- ▌ S4h Investigation Source Trace · human-avatarTraces a claim back to its origin: who first made it, what evidence it rested on, and how it has been distorted in transmission. Use when you've heard something and want to know where it actually came from — 'where does this claim come from', 'who first said this', 'I've heard that X is true', 'trace the source', 'is this just a rumor', 'how did this become conventional wisdom'.
- ▌ S4h Linguistics Semantic Drift · human-avatarTracks how meanings shift over time or across groups — concept creep, definition drift, and what it costs when words change. Use when you say 'this word doesn't mean what it used to', 'people are using this term differently now', 'this definition has been captured', 'concept creep', 'the word has been weaponised', 'we need to define our terms', or when a key term is contested or means different things to different audiences.
- ▌ S4h Psychology Behavior Change · human-avatarDiagnose what's maintaining an entrenched behavior and design the right intervention to shift it. Covers habits, routines, and behavioral defaults. Triggers: 'how do I change this behavior', 'why does this habit persist', 'how do I make this stick', 'behavior change', 'breaking a habit', 'building a habit', 'why can't I stop doing X', 'how do I get people to consistently do Y', 'implementation intentions', 'habit loop'.
- ▌ S4h Systems Archetype Matching · human-avatarApplies the 8 classic system archetypes (Senge) to diagnose recurring system behavior. Use when asked 'this keeps repeating', 'the fix made it worse', 'we've solved this before', 'identify the pattern', or 'system archetype'.
- ▌ S4h Writing Scene Construction · human-avatarDiagnoses and repairs individual scenes using the want/obstacle/outcome framework. Every scene must change the story's state. Use when a scene feels flat, static, or purposeless. Triggers: 'this scene isn't working', 'scene construction', 'scene feels flat', 'scene review', 'fix this scene', 'the scene doesn't do anything', 'should I cut this scene'.
- ▌ S4h Aesthetic Pattern Detection · human-avatarIdentifies the underlying formal pattern at work — because most successful designs, arguments, and solutions share deep structural patterns, and naming the pattern unlocks the playbook. TRIGGERS: 'what pattern is this', 'pattern recognition', 'why does this work', 'identify the form', 'what structure is at play', 'what archetype is this'.
- ▌ S4h Communication Clarity Audit · human-avatarAudits a communication for places where the message will be lost, misread, or misunderstood — before it's sent. Triggers: 'clarity audit', 'will this be understood', 'check my message', 'edit for clarity', 'where will this be misread'.
- ▌ S4h Constraint Hardness Testing · human-avatarTests whether a stated constraint is real — distinguishing genuine limits from assumptions, habits, or politics dressed as facts. Triggers: 'is this really a constraint', 'challenge the assumption', 'who says we can't', 'is this actually fixed', 'test the constraint'.
- ▌ S4h Creativity Consider Factors · human-avatarApply Edward de Bono's CAF (Consider All Factors) tool to map every relevant factor before making a decision or taking action. Use when the user is about to decide something important, wants to make sure they haven't missed anything, is planning an action and needs to think through consequences, or has been surprised by things they didn't anticipate. CAF is the pre-flight checklist for consequential decisions.
- ▌ S4h Creativity Lateral Thinking · human-avatarApply Edward de Bono's lateral thinking to escape dominant patterns and generate genuinely new directions. Use when the user is stuck on a problem, wants alternatives to their current approach, says 'I keep thinking about this the same way', wants to think outside the box, or needs fresh angles on any challenge — creative, strategic, technical, or personal.
- ▌ S4h Decision Criteria Weighting · human-avatarRuns a weighted multi-criteria analysis — making explicit what matters, how much, and how each option performs against it. Triggers: 'weighted decision matrix', 'multi-criteria analysis', 'help me choose between', 'compare these options', 'decision matrix'.
- ▌ S4h Decision Premortem Analysis · human-avatarImagines the decision has been made and failed — then diagnoses why. Breaks the commitment bias that prevents honest risk assessment after a direction is chosen. Triggers: 'pre-mortem', 'imagine this failed', 'what could go wrong', 'assume this doesn't work', 'failure mode analysis'.
- ▌ S4h Economics Incentive Mapping · human-avatarMaps who benefits, who pays, and what behaviours the incentive structure actually produces. Triggers: 'what's the incentive here', 'why do people keep doing this', 'incentives are misaligned', 'who benefits from this', 'why isn't this working despite the policy', 'what does the structure reward', 'people say one thing but do another', any situation where behaviour diverges from stated intent.
- ▌ S4h Evolution Fitness Landscape · human-avatarMaps the solution space as peaks and valleys to understand local optima, adaptive valleys, and path dependence. Triggers: 'are we stuck', 'local maximum', 'fitness landscape', 'why can't we get to the next level', 'path dependence', 'trapped by success', 'incremental improvement is not working', 'we need a discontinuous leap', 'adjacent possible'.
- ▌ S4h Historical Failure Analysis · human-avatarExtracts recurring failure modes from similar past situations — most failures have happened before in recognisable patterns. TRIGGERS: 'what usually goes wrong', 'failure pattern analysis', 'how do these typically fail', 'what went wrong last time', 'avoid past mistakes'.
- ▌ S4h Investigation Triangulation · human-avatarVerifies a claim across genuinely independent sources, distinguishing amplification from true corroboration. Use when you want to know if multiple sources actually confirm something — 'can I verify this from multiple angles', 'do independent sources agree', 'is this confirmed by more than one source', 'are these sources actually independent', 'how well-corroborated is this claim'.
- ▌ S4h Narrative Audience Modeling · human-avatarMaps the audience's current beliefs, real goals, fears, and threshold conditions before communicating with them. Use when asked to 'model the audience', 'audience analysis', 'who am I talking to', 'what do they care about', or 'why aren't they getting it'.
- ▌ S4h Narrative Structure Mapping · human-avatarApplies story architecture to any communication — proposal, presentation, strategy doc — so it moves people rather than informing them. Use when asked to 'structure this as a story', 'make this compelling', 'narrative arc', 'how do I present this', or 'story structure'.
- ▌ S4h Temporal Cycle Detection · human-avatarIdentifies what recurring cycle a situation is an instance of and where in that cycle you currently are. Use when asked 'what cycle is this', 'where are we in the cycle', 'have we seen this before', 'detect the pattern', 'hype cycle', or 'where in the curve'.
- ▌ S4h Temporal Futures Mapping · human-avatarExplores possible, probable, and preferable futures using scenario thinking. Use when asked about 'scenario planning', 'futures thinking', 'possible futures', 'how might this play out', 'futures cone', or 'what could happen'.
- ▌ S4h Temporal Horizon Mapping · human-avatarMaps consequences of a decision across short, medium, and long time horizons. Use when asked about 'time horizons', 'what does this look like in 5 years', 'short-term vs long-term', 'map the implications over time', or 'think through the long-term'.
- ▌ S4h Temporal Timing Analysis · human-avatarAssesses whether now is the right time to act, wait, or prepare. Use when asked 'is now the right time', 'should we wait', 'are we too early', 'timing this decision', 'when to move', or 'momentum'.
- ▌ S4h Aesthetic Coherence Check · human-avatarTests whether the parts of something form a unified whole — finding the jarring inconsistencies that accumulate when different contributors work without a shared vision. TRIGGERS: 'coherence check', 'does this feel unified', 'something feels off', 'inconsistent', 'check the whole', 'does this hang together'.
- ▌ S4h Analogy Structure Mapping · human-avatarIdentifies the deep structural correspondence between two situations — genuine isomorphism vs superficial similarity. Triggers: 'does this analogy hold', 'map the structure', 'is this really like that', 'structural similarity', 'test the comparison'.
- ▌ S4h Constraint Rule Inversion · human-avatarFlips a constraint into a creative driver — uses the limit as the generative force rather than working around it. Triggers: 'invert the constraint', 'use the limitation', 'constraint as feature', 'what if this limit was the requirement'.
- ▌ S4h Ecology Carrying Capacity · human-avatarApplies carrying capacity thinking to any system with limits — maps the ceiling, overshoot risk, and what happens when it is crossed. Use when asked about 'capacity limits', 'how much can this system handle', 'are we overloaded', 'growth ceiling', 'when do we hit the wall', or 'sustainable scale'.
- ▌ S4h Logic Argument Validation · human-avatarCheck whether an argument's premises actually support its conclusion, and identify logical fallacies. Use when reviewing a design decision, technical proposal, product argument, or any reasoning where the conclusion needs to hold up under scrutiny. TRIGGERS: 'validate this argument', 'does this logic hold', 'check my reasoning', 'is this a fallacy', 'find the flaw in this', any proposal or decision where the reasoning chain matters. Pairs well with logic-consistency-check when a full document needs scrutiny.
- ▌ S4h Narrative Tension Mapping · human-avatarFinds or creates the tension that makes communication worth paying attention to. Use when asked 'this feels flat', 'no one's engaging', 'make this compelling', 'find the tension', 'what's the story here', or 'add stakes'.
- ▌ S4h Play Constraint Inversion · human-avatarRemoves or inverts the main constraint to see what becomes possible — then uses those unconstrained solutions to find real ones. TRIGGERS: 'what if there were no constraints', 'rule inversion', 'what if we could do anything', 'break the rules', 'invert the assumption'.
- ▌ S4h Play Perspective Reversal · human-avatarFully inhabits the opposing perspective — competitor, critic, user, or adversary — to find what is invisible from your own position. TRIGGERS: 'steelman the opposition', 'think like the competitor', 'play devil's advocate', 'see it from their side', 'role reversal', 'inhabit the other perspective'.
- ▌ S4h Resource Leverage Mapping · human-avatarFinds the highest-leverage use of available resources — where the same input produces the most output. Triggers: 'resource leverage', 'highest-leverage use', 'where should we put our energy', 'maximize impact', 'leverage mapping'.
- ▌ S4h Social Incentive Analysis · human-avatarMaps the actual incentives driving behaviour — distinguishing stated motivations from the real incentive structures that shape what people do. Triggers: 'incentive analysis', 'why are they doing this', 'what are the actual incentives', 'follow the incentives', 'what does the system reward'.
- ▌ S4h Systems Leverage Analysis · human-avatarFinds where small interventions produce large, lasting change using Donella Meadows' leverage point hierarchy. Use when asked 'where should we intervene', 'highest leverage', 'what actually changes this system', or 'find the lever'.
- ▌ S4h Writing Executive Summary · human-avatarProduces executive summaries, 1-page briefs, and board-level documents by extracting the situation, key findings, implications, and recommendation — answer-first, one page maximum. Use when a lengthy document needs a senior-audience brief that enables a decision. Triggers: 'executive summary', 'summarise this for a senior audience', '1-page brief', 'TL;DR for leadership', 'distil this', 'board summary', 'write a brief'.
- ▌ S4h Writing Voice Consistency · human-avatarExtracts a voice fingerprint from strong existing passages and uses it to audit and repair voice departures. Use when multiple contributors have created a fractured document, when brand voice has drifted, or when the writing doesn't sound like one person. Triggers: 'the voice isn't consistent', 'voice consistency', 'this doesn't sound like us', 'multi-author document', 'maintain voice', 'brand voice', 'the writing sounds like different people'.
- ▌ S4h Aesthetic Elegance Testing · human-avatarTests whether a solution is more complex than it needs to be — distinguishing necessary complexity from accidental complexity that accreted over time. TRIGGERS: 'elegance test', 'is this too complex', 'over-engineered', 'is there a simpler way', 'does this feel right'.
- ▌ S4h Constraint Scope Reduction · human-avatarFinds the minimum that satisfies the actual requirement — stripping everything wanted but not needed. Triggers: 'minimum viable', 'what's the minimum', 'strip this back', 'what do we actually need', 'scope reduction', 'simplify the requirement'.
- ▌ S4h Economics Opportunity Cost · human-avatarMaps the true cost of a choice by making explicit what is foregone. Triggers: 'opportunity cost', 'what am I giving up', 'what else could I do with this', 'hidden cost', 'what's the real cost of this', 'what are we not doing by doing this', any decision where the cost of the chosen path needs to be compared against the best alternative.
- ▌ S4h Epistemology Justification · human-avatarAnalyzes what would actually justify believing a claim. Maps the justification structure (foundationalist, coherentist, reliabilist) and identifies the weakest link in the chain. Use when you say 'what would it actually take to know this', 'is this belief actually justified', 'what's the foundation for this assumption', 'we keep citing the same evidence for everything', 'I believe this but I can't say why', 'what would change my mind', or when a claim feels supported but you want to make the support structure explicit and test it.
- ▌ S4h Decision Option Mapping · human-avatarEnsures all real options are visible before choosing — countering the false dichotomy that limits consideration to the first two options that came to mind. Triggers: 'what are all the options', 'false dichotomy check', 'expand the option set', 'what else could we do', 'options inventory'.
- ▌ S4h Ecology Interdependence · human-avatarMaps dependency webs and the cascading effects of removing or changing a node in the web. Use when asked 'who depends on whom', 'what cascades if we change X', 'downstream effects', 'what holds this together', 'ripple effects', or 'what breaks if we remove this'.
- ▌ S4h Economics Externalities · human-avatarIdentifies costs and benefits not borne by the decision-maker — and how to internalise them. Triggers: 'externality', 'who else is affected', 'costs falling on others', 'side effects', 'spillover', 'the market isn't accounting for this', 'negative externality', 'positive externality', 'social cost vs. private cost', 'Pigou', any situation where the person deciding does not bear all the consequences.
- ▌ S4h Game Theory Equilibrium · human-avatarFinds the stable outcome of a strategic interaction — the point where no player can improve their result by changing their strategy alone. Triggers: 'Nash equilibrium', 'dominant strategy', 'what's the stable outcome', 'equilibrium analysis', 'payoff matrix', 'what will rational players do', 'where will this land'.
- ▌ S4h Information Compression · human-avatarApplies lossy vs lossless compression thinking to representation and communication. Use when asked to 'cut this down', 'what can I remove', 'what's essential here', 'summarise without losing the key point', 'what must be preserved', or when a representation needs to be more efficient without becoming misleading.
- ▌ S4h Linguistics Connotation · human-avatarMaps the emotional and political freight that words carry beyond their literal meaning. Use when you say 'this word feels wrong', 'what does this term really signal', 'is this word loaded', 'find a better word for this', 'what are the connotations of', 'why does this language feel off', or when word choice is creating unintended reactions.
- ▌ S4h Logic Causality Mapping · human-avatarMap causal relationships, trace dependencies, and reason about consequences before acting. Use when you need to understand what causes what, what breaks if something changes, or what must be true for a plan to work. TRIGGERS: 'map the dependencies', 'what causes this', 'what breaks if I change X', 'trace the root cause', 'if X then what', 'what has to be true for this to work', any situation involving root cause analysis, impact assessment, dependency tracing, or reasoning about chains of effect.
- ▌ S4h Logic Consistency Check · human-avatarSurface internal contradictions, conflicting requirements, and edge cases that expose hidden conflicts in a document, spec, plan, design, or set of requirements. Use when something feels off but you can't pinpoint why, before committing to a design, or when requirements have grown incrementally and may have drifted out of sync. TRIGGERS: 'consistency check', 'find contradictions', 'does this spec make sense', 'check for conflicts', 'something feels wrong here', reviewing requirements docs, technical specs, architecture plans, product briefs, or any document where internal coherence matters.
- ▌ S4h Writing Prose Elevation · human-avatarRaises the quality of competent but flat prose by targeting abstraction, weak verbs, and sensory absence. Use when writing is error-free but doesn't sing — when it reads as competent but not compelling. Triggers: 'the writing is flat', 'prose elevation', 'competent but not compelling', 'lift this writing', 'the prose needs work but isn't broken', 'make this sing', 'the prose is fine but forgettable'.
- ▌ S4h Analogy Boundary Testing · human-avatarFinds where an analogy breaks down before it's relied upon. Analogies fail silently — the damage happens when decisions are made on a mapping that doesn't hold in the relevant dimension. Triggers: 'stress-test this analogy', 'where does this comparison break', 'does this really apply', 'test the metaphor', 'where is the analogy wrong'.
- ▌ S4h Cognition Cognitive Load · human-avatarManages the limits of working memory — chunking, offloading, and reducing unnecessary complexity to free capacity for what matters. Use when asked 'this is too complex to hold in my head', 'I keep losing track of where I am', 'how do I make this simpler to think about', 'the design is overwhelming', 'people aren't retaining this', or when information architecture, learning design, or communication complexity needs to be optimised for working memory limits.
- ▌ S4h Ecology Keystone Species · human-avatarIdentifies the entities with disproportionate structural importance — whose removal would collapse the system. Use when asked 'who is critical here', 'what holds this together', 'single points of failure', 'what if we lose X', 'irreplaceable actors', or 'structural dependencies'.
- ▌ S4h Emotional Stakes Mapping · human-avatarMaps what each stakeholder actually cares about underneath their stated position — because addressing the stated position while missing the real stake accomplishes nothing. TRIGGERS: 'what do they actually want', 'underlying stakes', 'what's really at stake', 'beneath the position', 'why won't they agree'.
- ▌ S4h Information Signal Noise · human-avatarSeparates meaningful signal from background noise. Use when asked to 'find the signal', 'cut through the noise', 'what actually matters here', 'what's driving the variation', 'is this data telling us something real', or when a source is overwhelming and it's unclear what's relevant.
- ▌ S4h Logic Constraint Mapping · human-avatarMap the full constraint landscape for a decision, design, or plan — distinguishing hard limits from soft preferences, surfacing hidden constraints, and finding conflicts between them. Use before committing to an approach, when a plan keeps hitting unexpected walls, or when it's unclear what's actually negotiable. TRIGGERS: 'map the constraints', 'what are we actually working with', 'what's blocking this', 'what can we change', 'constraint analysis', any situation where the boundaries of what's possible need to be understood before proceeding.
- ▌ S4h Narrative Frame Analysis · human-avatarIdentifies the current frame around a situation and generates alternative frames that reveal different truths. Use when asked to 'reframe this', 'the framing is wrong', 'change the narrative', 'different angle', or 'why won't they see it'.
- ▌ S4h Play Stimulus Generation · human-avatarIntroduces a random, unrelated element to break mental fixation — forcing new associations that bypass the groove of familiar thinking. TRIGGERS: 'random stimulus', 'random word technique', 'break the fixation', 'I keep thinking of the same things', 'unstick this', 'force new associations'.
- ▌ S4h Play Worst Case Reversal · human-avatarDeliberately designs the worst possible version — then reverses each failure mode into a design principle. Removes the pressure of being right and unlocks creative honesty that polite brainstorming suppresses. TRIGGERS: 'worst possible idea', 'how would you make this terrible', 'reverse brainstorm', 'design the failure', 'how would you deliberately fail'.
- ▌ S4h Sensory Signal Detection · human-avatarSeparates meaningful signal from background noise — finding what actually matters among everything present. Triggers: 'what actually matters here', 'separate signal from noise', 'too much information', 'find the signal', 'what should I focus on', 'what's relevant'.
- ▌ S4h Social Coalition Mapping · human-avatarMaps who needs to be aligned, who already is, and how to build the coalition a proposal needs to succeed. Triggers: 'coalition building', 'who do I need to get on board', 'map the support', 'build alignment', 'who will support this', 'who will block this'.
- ▌ S4h Social Dynamics Analysis · human-avatarIdentifies group psychology shaping a discussion or team — groupthink, status dynamics, coalition formation, psychological safety. Triggers: 'group dynamics', 'why does this team behave like this', 'groupthink check', 'why won't people speak up', 'meeting dynamics', 'team dysfunction'.
- ▌ S4h Systems Feedback Mapping · human-avatarIdentifies all reinforcing (+) and balancing (−) feedback loops in a system. Use when asked to 'map the feedback loops', 'why does this keep happening', 'unintended consequences', or 'system keeps oscillating'.
- ▌ S4h Strategy Deception · human-avatarManages information asymmetry in legitimate competitive contexts — what to protect, what impressions work in your favor, and what your opponent may be concealing from you. Triggers: 'conceal my position', 'information asymmetry', 'misdirection', 'what should I reveal vs conceal', 'negotiation deception', 'strategic ambiguity', 'manage what they know about me', 'read their signals'.