Second-order thinking engine. Forces first-principles reframing, temporal consequence tracing ('and then what?'), structured evaluation, and a hard sycophancy override before delivering any non-trivial response. MUST trigger when: (1) the query is complex, multi-step, or has ambiguous intent; (2) the user seems confused, frustrated, or stuck; (3) you're about to give advice that has real consequences (architecture, strategy, financial, interpersonal); (4) the problem involves tradeoffs, unknowns, or competing concerns; (5) you're answering from pattern-matching rather than actual reasoning; (6) the user says 'think harder', 'think about this more', 'are you sure', 'that doesn't seem right', '/vigil'; (7) you're generating code, configs, or recommendations that will be deployed. Applies to ALL domains: code, strategy, writing, research, comms, debugging, planning. Do NOT trigger on trivial queries (greetings, simple factual lookups, small talk) or when the answer is genuinely obvious and low-stakes.
2026-05-06