Claude Skills by human-avatar

Analyses bidding strategy and auction design — how much to bid, how to avoid the winner's curse, and how to design revenue-maximising or efficient auctions. Triggers: 'bidding strategy', 'auction analysis', 'how much should I bid', 'auction design', 'winner's curse', 'sealed bid', 'how do I avoid overbidding', 'procurement auction', 'design an auction', 'competitive offer'.

Analyses which coalitions form and how to divide gains fairly using cooperative game theory and the Shapley value. Triggers: 'coalition formation', 'who should we partner with', 'cooperative game theory', 'Shapley value', 'fair division', 'stable coalition', 'which coalition will form', 'equity split', 'power in a coalition', 'how should we divide this up fairly'.

Finds 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'.

Analyses long-run repeated interactions — how cooperation forms, how trust is built, how defection spirals start, and which strategies sustain cooperation. Triggers: 'repeated game', 'iterated strategy', 'long-run relationship', 'reputation effects', 'how do I sustain cooperation', 'tit for tat', 'shadow of the future', 'will they defect', 'ongoing relationship after betrayal', 'how do we recover from this'.

Designs 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'.

Analyses 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'.

Analyses credibility problems and designs signals that are believable because they're costly to fake. Triggers: 'how do I signal credibly', 'signaling', 'they won't believe me', 'cheap talk', 'commitment device', 'how do I make a credible commitment', 'asymmetric information', 'how do I prove I'm serious', 'they don't trust my claim'.

Routes to the right game-theory skill for your strategic situation. Triggers: 'game theory', 'strategic interaction', 'what will they do', 'payoff analysis', 'how do I think about this strategically', 'incentive design', 'cooperation problem', 'bidding strategy', any situation where the best choice depends on what others choose.

Identifies 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'.

Extracts 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'.

Extracts 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'.

Finds 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'.

Entry point for the historical reasoning toolkit. Routes to the right historical skill based on your situation. Use when you say 'historical', 'has this happened before', 'what does history say', 'what cycle is this', 'what usually goes wrong', 'what's the lesson', or want historical reasoning applied without knowing which specific tool fits.

Asks 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'.

Tests 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'.

Surfaces 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'.

Entry point for the identity toolkit. Routes to the right identity skill based on your situation. Use when you say 'identity', 'who are we', 'values check', 'is this on mission', 'what do we actually stand for', 'gut check', 'are we drifting', or want identity/values reasoning applied without knowing which specific tool fits.

Breaks 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'.

Generates 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'.

Evaluates 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'.

Traces 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'.

Verifies 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'.

Entry point for the investigation toolkit. Routes to the right investigation skill based on what you're trying to establish. Use when you say 'investigate', 'verify this', 'check this claim', 'where does this come from', 'is this true', 'trace the source', 'stress-test this belief', 'what's the evidence', 'could something else explain this', or want to know whether something you've heard is actually true.

Check 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...

Map 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 eff...

A fast, comprehensive logic report on any argument, plan, or reasoning — validates premises, tests inference, detects fallacies, surfaces hidden assumptions, and produces a verdict. Lighter than logic-council (no peer review), heavier than logic-argument-validation (covers the whole reasoning, not just one argument). Triggers: 'logic check', 'quick logic review', 'check my reasoning', 'is this sound', 'full logic check', any request for a complete logical assessment.

Surface 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, te...

Map 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'...

Run a reasoning problem, argument, plan, or decision through a council of 5 logical reasoning advisors who analyze it from distinct reasoning frameworks, peer-review each other, and synthesize a verdict on whether the reasoning holds. MANDATORY TRIGGERS: 'logic council this', 'run the logic council', 'pressure-test this reasoning', 'is my thinking sound'. STRONG TRIGGERS: any complex argument where the conclusion matters, a plan with non-obvious dependencies, reasoning you've invested in and ...

Take broken reasoning — a flawed argument, contradictory spec, unsound plan, or invalid inference — diagnose exactly what's wrong, and produce a corrected version. Use when you have reasoning that doesn't hold and you want it fixed, not just critiqued. TRIGGERS: 'fix this reasoning', 'repair this argument', 'this logic is broken, fix it', 'make this argument sound', 'my reasoning is circular, help', any situation where broken reasoning needs to be made valid rather than just flagged. Pairs wi...

Entry point for the logic toolkit. Routes to the right logic skill based on your situation. Use when you say 'logic', 'is this sound', 'check my reasoning', 'find the flaw', 'fix this argument', 'find contradictions', 'map the dependencies', 'map the constraints', or want logical analysis applied without knowing which specific tool fits.

Applies Csikszentmihalyi's flow framework to diagnose why optimal experience isn't occurring and redesign the conditions for it. Use when you can't get absorbed in important work, find yourself distracted and scattered, feel chronically bored or chronically anxious in your work, want to design conditions for deep work, or used to experience flow and have lost it. Triggers: 'flow', 'deep work', 'I can't focus', 'I'm always distracted', 'I want to get absorbed in my work', 'I feel bored at work...

Applies Carol Dweck's growth mindset research as a practical methodology — the actual mechanics, not the motivational poster version. Use when you're treating failure as evidence about your identity, avoiding challenges because of what failure would mean, comparing yourself to others in a way that deflates rather than inspires, or struggling to persist in areas where you're not naturally good. Triggers: 'growth mindset', 'I hate not being good at things', 'failure feels personal', 'I avoid th...

Applies positive psychology as a rigorous practice — not pop-psychology positivity. Use when you want to build flourishing, diagnose what dimension of wellbeing is underdeveloped, understand what makes life feel meaningful or hollow, or identify why you're not thriving despite the absence of obvious problems. Triggers: 'positive psychology', 'flourishing', 'I want to thrive', 'I'm not happy but I don't know why', 'what makes life meaningful', 'I have everything I need but still feel flat', 'w...

Applies cognitive reframing as a rigorous methodology — CBT-adjacent but not therapy. Use when you're stuck in a negative thought loop, interpreting a situation in a consistently unhelpful way, catastrophizing, or noticing that your automatic interpretation of events generates disproportionate distress. Triggers: 'reframe', 'negative thought loop', 'I keep catastrophizing', 'I can't stop thinking about it the worst way', 'cognitive distortion', 'I keep assuming the worst', 'stuck in my head a...

Applies the full Stoic toolkit as a practical thinking methodology. Use when you're caught in worry about outcomes you can't control, struggling with circumstances outside your power, suffering from what others think of you, facing adversity or loss, or wanting to develop equanimity. Triggers: 'stoic', 'what's in my control', 'I keep worrying about outcomes', 'help me accept this', 'I can't stop thinking about what might go wrong', 'someone else controls the outcome', 'dealing with adversity'.

Entry point for the mindset toolkit. Routes to the right mindset skill based on your situation. Use when you say 'mindset', 'change my perspective', 'I keep thinking about this the wrong way', 'help me deal with what I can't control', 'I want to flourish more', 'I keep treating failure personally', 'I'm stuck in a negative thought loop', 'I can't focus', 'I want to get into flow', or any request for a philosophical or psychological orientation shift.

Maps 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'.

Identifies 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'.

Applies 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'.

Finds 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'.

Entry point for the narrative toolkit. Routes to the right narrative skill based on your situation. Use when you say 'narrative', 'story', 'this feels flat', 'how do I structure this', 'the framing is wrong', 'who am I talking to', 'make this compelling', 'find the tension', or want narrative/storytelling help without knowing which specific tool fits.

Removes 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'.

Fully 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'.

Introduces 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'.

Deliberately 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'.

Entry point for the play toolkit. Routes to the right playful thinking skill based on your situation. Use when you say 'play', 'think playfully', 'flip this', 'what if there were no constraints', 'steelman the opposition', 'random stimulus', 'worst possible idea', or want unconventional thinking applied without knowing which specific tool fits.

Anchors 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'.

Tests 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'.

Calculates 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'.