think

name	think
description	Structured reasoning strategies (tree-of-thoughts, trilemma, self-consistency, step-back, ReAct). Use when facing complex decisions, weighing trade-offs, comparing multiple approaches, balancing competing objectives, or stuck. `/think <mode>` runs one strategy; `/think` alone shows the menu.
allowed-tools	Read, Bash, Glob, Grep
argument-hint	["tree|trilemma|consistency|stepback|react"]

Think Strategies

One skill, five structured reasoning strategies. Each surfaces your reasoning step-by-step instead of jumping to an answer. The think way's metacognitive check normally escalates here on its own; /think is the manual override — use it to force an external strategy, choose a specific one, or make the reasoning visible.

Modes

Mode	Strategy	When
tree	Tree of Thoughts	Multiple viable approaches — branch, evaluate, prune, select
trilemma	Trilemma	Three competing objectives — satisfice, don't optimize all
consistency	Self-Consistency	High-stakes — run independent paths, take consensus
stepback	Step-Back	Stuck — abstract to principles, then apply back
react	ReAct	Investigation / debugging — reason → act → observe

/think with no mode: present this table, ask which shape fits the problem, then run that mode.

Running a mode

Each mode maps to a strategy id (written to the session file) and a definition file under hooks/ways/meta/think/strategies/:

Mode	Strategy id	Definition file
tree	tree-of-thoughts	tree-of-thoughts.md
trilemma	trilemma	trilemma.md
consistency	self-consistency	self-consistency.md
stepback	step-back	step-back.md
react	react	react.md

1. Session guard — only one think session at a time:

cat /tmp/.claude-think-session 2>/dev/null

If a session is active, ask the user to finish or abandon it before starting another. Do NOT start a second concurrent session.

2. Register the chosen strategy id:

echo "<strategy-id>" > /tmp/.claude-think-session

3. Work the stages. Read the strategy definition and follow its numbered stages in order — present your work for each stage before moving to the next:

cat ~/.claude/hooks/ways/meta/think/strategies/<definition-file>

4. Complete or abandon. After the final stage — or if the user says "never mind" / "skip it" / changes topic — clean up so the think way can fire again for new problems:

rm -f /tmp/.claude-think-session /tmp/.claude-way-meta-think-*"${CLAUDE_SESSION_ID:+-$CLAUDE_SESSION_ID}" 2>/dev/null

Not for

• Routine work that doesn't need structured reasoning — the strategies add deliberation overhead. Reach for them on genuinely hard problems (branching approaches, competing objectives, high-stakes calls, being stuck), not every task.