https://github.com/mattnowdev/thinking-partner npx skills add mattnowdev/thinking-partner I’m a fractional CTO. Claude is smart but it doesn’t think with you. It jumps to conclusions, and skips the back-and-forth that makes conversations with a good advisor productive. It never checks if you’re even asking the right question. I built a skill with 150+ mental models that gives Claude proper rails for structured thinking and better dialogue with you. It follows the Agent Skills standard so it works across coding agents, and the improvement is even more noticeable on models that have weaker reasoning by default. What it adds: Orientation detection states: Process-sovereign : Actually exploring, open to being wrong. Proceed normally. Conclusion-preserving : Already decided, seeking validation. Decouple the conclusion from identity. Authority-preserving : Can’t be wrong. Frame challenges as exploring the idea together. Threat-reducing : Anxious, rushing to resolve. Slow down, address emotional state first. Completion-seeking : Wants an answer, not the right one. Insert deliberate pauses. Monitor co-option : Analysis always confirms the same thing. Most dangerous. Introduce external checks. 17 disciplines: General Thinking : First Principles, Inversion, Second-Order Thinking, Chesterton’s Fence, Entropy Decision-Making : Pre-Mortem, Regret Minimization, SWOT, Asymmetric Risk, Preserving Optionality Problem-Solving : 5 Whys, MECE Decomposition, Bright Spots Analysis, Constraint Analysis Systems : Feedback Loops, Stocks & Flows, Tipping Points, Antifragility, Path Dependence Economics : Incentives, Network Effects, Tragedy of the Commons, Lindy Effect, Power Laws Statistics : Bayesian Updating, Correlation vs Causation, Selection Bias, Planning Fallacy Psychology : Confirmation Bias, Halo Effect, Curse of Knowledge, Commitment Bias Game Theory : Prisoner’s Dilemma, Schelling Point, Signaling, Moral Hazard Negotiation : BATNA, ZOPA, Logrolling
- 8 more (physics, biology, communication, creativity, learning, time management, resilience, ethics) Quick example: Asked it about Python vs TypeScript for an AI platform (4 TS devs, CEO wants Python, build-vs-buy decisions stacked on top). Vanilla Claude: “stick with TypeScript, buy STT, build the evaluation engine.” Decent starting point but surface level. With the skill, it went deeper and changed how I approached the whole problem: Reversibility Test : sorted every decision into one-way vs two-way doors. I was treating them all as equally important. They weren’t. Pre-Mortem : 3 distinct failure scenarios I hadn’t considered. The “build everything custom” path was a trap. Steel-manned the CEO’s position before recommending against it. Found a valid concern I’d been dismissing. CEO conversation reframe: “we’re not rejecting Python, we’re sequencing it.” I walked into the meeting with that line and it landed. Assumptions that would change the answer. Gave me a checklist to revisit if things shifted. It reshaped how I thought about the problem. Disclosure: I’m the author. Free, MIT licensed, open source. No network requests, no external services. SKILL.md (321 lines) loads by default. Reference files load on demand. 95+ GitHub stars. Any feedback is welcome, happy to iterate on it! Thanks! submitted by /u/MattNowDev
Originally posted by u/MattNowDev on r/ClaudeCode