lateral-thinking

name	lateral-thinking
description	Lateral Thinking Campaign — escape logical thinking tracks via PO/movement, random entry, concept fan, challenge, and six hats (de Bono)
execution	campaign
dependencies	{"sops":["alternatives-generation","challenge-questioning","concept-fan-expansion","constraint-injection","context-checkpoint","context-init","creative-ideation-assumption-surfacing","creative-ideation-novelty-scoring","creative-ideation-saturation-detection","escape-technique","fractionation","green-hat-session","idea-synthesis","lateral-synthesis","movement-operation","po-provocation","random-word-stimulus","stepping-stone"],"strategies":["challenge-operation","concept-fan","provocation-and-movement","random-entry","six-hats-ideation"],"tactics":["concept-hierarchy","creative-ideation-provocation-generation","evaluation-filtering","movement-extraction"]}

Lateral Thinking

Escape logical thinking tracks via PO/movement, random entry, concept fan, challenge, and six hats (de Bono).

Strategy Routing

Strategy	Signal Keywords
provocation-and-movement	PO, provocation, movement, escape pattern, lateral jump
random-entry	random word, random input, unrelated stimulus, entry point
concept-fan	purpose, concept levels, directions, fan out, broaden
challenge-operation	why, challenge, question practice, non-threatening
six-hats-ideation	green hat, creative hat, six hats, parallel thinking

Manifest

Strategies

Strategy	Description
provocation-and-movement	PO + Movement: generate provocations then extract useful directions (4 movement types)
random-entry	Random word/concept as thinking entry point (de Bono Random Entry)
concept-fan	Expand from purpose to concepts to directions to ideas (de Bono Concept Fan)
challenge-operation	Non-threatening 'Why?' questioning of current practices (de Bono Challenge)
six-hats-ideation	Green Hat focused creative thinking within Six Hats framework

Tactics

Tactic	Description
provocation-generation	Generate PO provocations using 5 techniques (shared)
movement-extraction	Extract constructive directions from provocations via 4 movement types
concept-hierarchy	Build concept levels from purpose through concepts to ideas

SOPs

SOP	Description
movement-operation	Extract constructive directions from PO provocations (4 movement types)
concept-fan-expansion	Expand concept fan from purpose through concepts to ideas
challenge-questioning	Non-threatening 'Why?' questioning of current practices
escape-technique	Identify dominant thinking pattern and escape it
stepping-stone	Use impractical ideas as stepping stones to practical ones
green-hat-session	Structured creative thinking in Six Hats Green Hat mode
fractionation	Split concepts into smaller units, recombine differently
alternatives-generation	Generate alternatives for every known approach
lateral-synthesis	Synthesize all lateral thinking outputs

Budget Table

Strategy	web-search	web-research	paper-overview	paper-search	paper-research
provocation-and-movement	20	5	20	12	5
random-entry	15	5	15	10	3
concept-fan	20	8	20	12	5
challenge-operation	20	8	20	12	5
six-hats-ideation	15	5	15	10	3

MCP Tools

Tool	Server	Purpose
brave_web_search	brave-search	General web search for methods and examples
brave_llm_context	brave-search	Deep content extraction from web pages
apify/rag-web-browser	apify	Full page scraping for detailed content
get_paper_content	alphaxiv	Read academic paper content
discover_papers	alphaxiv	Find relevant research papers
relevanceSearch	semantic-scholar	Search academic literature
paper	semantic-scholar	Get paper details
citations	semantic-scholar	Trace citation networks

Context Management

• Each strategy tracks its own budget via State Ledger
• Strategies MUST NOT exceed allocated budget
• Campaign monitors cumulative spend across all strategies
• If a strategy exhausts budget before meeting yield, escalate to campaign level for reallocation
• Prefer paper-overview over paper-research for initial exploration (lower cost)

Available Tactics

Tactic	Role
provocation-generation	Generate PO provocations (shared, from combinatorial-creativity)
movement-extraction	Extract constructive directions from provocations
concept-hierarchy	Build concept levels with ideas per level

Available SOPs

SOP	Role
movement-operation	4 movement types extraction
concept-fan-expansion	Purpose → concepts → directions → ideas
challenge-questioning	Non-threatening challenge questioning
escape-technique	Dominant pattern escape
stepping-stone	Impractical → practical via stepping stones
green-hat-session	Pure creative output (judgment suspended)
fractionation	Split and recombine concepts
alternatives-generation	Generate alternatives per approach
lateral-synthesis	Final output synthesis

Available Strategies

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

Strategy	When to use
challenge-operation	Non-threatening 'Why?' questioning of current practices (de Bono Challenge)
concept-fan	Expand from purpose to concepts to directions to ideas (de Bono Concept Fan)
provocation-and-movement	PO + Movement: generate provocations then extract useful directions (4 movement types)
random-entry	Random word/concept as thinking entry point (de Bono Random Entry)
six-hats-ideation	Green Hat focused creative thinking within Six Hats framework

Available Tactics

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

Tactic	When to use
concept-hierarchy	Build concept levels from purpose through concepts to ideas, with escape and fractionation at each level.
creative-ideation-provocation-generation	Generate PO provocations and extract constructive movement. Orchestrates assumption surfacing → provocation creation → movement extraction → idea formation.
evaluation-filtering	Multi-dimensional evaluation and tiered filtering of generated ideas. Orchestrates novelty assessment → feasibility check → ranking → selection.
movement-extraction	Extract constructive directions from provocations via 4 movement types (moment-to-moment, principle, focus difference, positive aspects).

Available SOPs

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

SOP	When to use
alternatives-generation	Generate alternatives for every known approach — ensure no approach goes unchallenged.
challenge-questioning	Non-threatening 'Why?' questioning of current practices to reveal historical accidents vs. genuine constraints.
concept-fan-expansion	Expand concept fan from purpose through concepts to directions to ideas (de Bono Concept Fan).
constraint-injection	Inject artificial constraints to force creative divergence. Generates and applies constraints (resource, time, material, audience, scale) to existing ideas to produce variants.
context-checkpoint	Append research process and results to the current Phase's context file. Covers both process and results with genuine substance. Use this skill at plan-designated checkpoint points — typically after each strategy completes or at key decision nodes within a research Phase.
context-init	Create a new context file for a research Phase. Called once at Phase start to initialize the file that subsequent context-checkpoint calls will append to. Use this skill whenever a new research Phase begins and a fresh context file is needed.
creative-ideation-assumption-surfacing	Enumerate implicit assumptions in a problem statement or existing solution. Produces categorized assumption inventory (physical, social, temporal, economic, technical).
creative-ideation-novelty-scoring	Score ideas on novelty dimensions — structural distance from known solutions, conceptual surprise, domain-crossing depth. Produces ranked novelty assessment.
creative-ideation-saturation-detection	Determine when additional ideation yields diminishing returns. Analyzes latest idea batch against existing corpus to judge continue/near-saturation/saturated.
escape-technique	Identify dominant thinking pattern and escape it via deliberate pattern-breaking.
fractionation	Split concepts into smaller units and recombine them differently to produce novel structures.
green-hat-session	Structured creative thinking in Six Hats Green Hat mode — pure creative output with judgment suspended.
idea-synthesis	Synthesize diverse ideas into coherent solution concepts. Combines fragments from multiple ideation passes into structured, actionable ideas with clear mechanism descriptions.
lateral-synthesis	Synthesize all lateral thinking intermediate outputs into a structured idea report.