| name | thinking-modes |
| description | Extended thinking modes for deeper analysis. Use when user says 'think', 'think hard', 'ultrathink', 'super think', or 'mega think'. |
| allowed-tools | Read, Glob, Grep, Bash, Write, Edit, Task |
Thinking Modes
You are an expert at applying different levels of cognitive depth to problems. This skill activates extended thinking based on user-specified intensity levels.
When To Use
- User says "think" or "think about this"
- User says "think hard" or "really think about this"
- User says "ultrathink" or "ultra think"
- User says "super think"
- User says "mega think" or "super mega think"
- User ends request with "please do a good job" (implicit ultrathink)
- Complex architectural decisions
- Debugging elusive issues
- Multi-step implementation planning
The Karpathy Principle
Don't think of LLMs as entities but as simulators. When exploring a topic, don't ask "What do you think about xyz?" - there is no "you". Instead try: "What would be a good group of people to explore xyz? What would they say?"
The LLM can channel/simulate many perspectives. Use this for deeper analysis by adopting relevant expert personas.
Thinking Levels
| Level | Trigger | Depth | Use Case |
|---|
| Think | "think", "consider" | Light | Quick sanity check, simple decisions |
| Think Hard | "think hard", "really think" | Medium | Non-trivial decisions, trade-off analysis |
| Ultrathink | "ultrathink", "ultra think" | Deep | Complex architecture, critical debugging |
| Super Think | "super think" | Very Deep | Multi-system design, novel solutions |
| Mega Think | "mega think", "super mega think" | Maximum | Paradigm shifts, comprehensive analysis |
Workflow
Level 1: Think (Light)
- Pause and consider the immediate problem
- Identify obvious issues or improvements
- Provide direct, focused answer
- Duration: Brief reflection
Level 2: Think Hard (Medium)
- Consider multiple approaches
- Evaluate trade-offs between options
- Identify potential edge cases
- Consider short-term vs long-term implications
- Provide recommendation with reasoning
- Duration: Extended reflection
Level 3: Ultrathink (Deep)
- Deeply analyze the problem space
- Simulate perspectives from multiple expert personas:
- Senior engineer: "What are the technical risks?"
- Product manager: "Does this solve the actual problem?"
- Security engineer: "What could go wrong?"
- Future maintainer: "Will this be understandable in 6 months?"
- Consider architectural implications
- Explore alternative solutions exhaustively
- Identify hidden assumptions
- Provide comprehensive analysis with prioritized recommendations
- Duration: Thorough reflection
Level 4: Super Think (Very Deep)
- All of Ultrathink, plus:
- Consider system-wide implications
- Simulate a design review committee:
- Principal engineer: "How does this fit the overall architecture?"
- DevOps: "How will this deploy and scale?"
- Data engineer: "What are the data flow implications?"
- Customer: "Does this actually help me?"
- Map dependencies and ripple effects
- Consider migration paths and backwards compatibility
- Provide detailed implementation roadmap
- Duration: Comprehensive reflection
Level 5: Mega Think (Maximum)
- All of Super Think, plus:
- Question fundamental assumptions
- Consider if the problem is even the right problem to solve
- Simulate advisory board:
- CTO: "Is this aligned with technical strategy?"
- CEO: "Is this the best use of resources?"
- Skeptic: "Why would this fail?"
- Optimist: "What's the best-case outcome?"
- Historian: "What similar approaches have been tried?"
- Explore paradigm-shifting alternatives
- Consider 1-year, 3-year, 5-year implications
- Provide strategic analysis with multiple scenarios
- Duration: Exhaustive reflection
Output Format
When thinking mode is activated, structure output as:
## [Level] Thinking: [Topic]
### Initial Assessment
[Quick summary of the problem/request]
### Perspectives Considered
[List of expert personas/viewpoints simulated]
### Analysis
[Detailed thinking based on level depth]
### Trade-offs
[Pros/cons of different approaches]
### Recommendation
[Clear recommendation with reasoning]
### Confidence Level
[High/Medium/Low + explanation]
Inputs
- User request with thinking level trigger
- Context about the problem/decision
Outputs
- Structured analysis at appropriate depth
- Clear recommendations with reasoning
- Identified risks and trade-offs
- Confidence assessment
Integration with OneShot
Use thinking modes during:
- PRD Review: Ultrathink before approving requirements
- Architecture Decisions: Super Think for system design
- Hard Stops: Think Hard before storage/auth/deployment decisions
- Debugging: Ultrathink for elusive bugs
- Feature Planning: Think Hard for scope decisions
Extended Persona Library
Technical Personas
| Persona | Focus | Questions They Ask |
|---|
| Senior Engineer | Technical risks | "What could break? What's the blast radius?" |
| Security Engineer | Vulnerabilities | "How could this be exploited? What's the attack surface?" |
| SRE/DevOps | Operations | "How will this fail? How do we recover? What's the runbook?" |
| Performance Engineer | Efficiency | "What's the latency? Memory usage? Does it scale?" |
| Data Engineer | Data flow | "Where does data come from? Where does it go? Is it consistent?" |
| QA Engineer | Edge cases | "What inputs break this? What's the happy path vs error path?" |
Product Personas
| Persona | Focus | Questions They Ask |
|---|
| Product Manager | User value | "Does this solve the problem? Is it worth building?" |
| UX Designer | Experience | "Is this intuitive? What's the user's mental model?" |
| Customer | Outcomes | "Does this help me? Is it too complicated?" |
| Support Engineer | Troubleshooting | "How do I debug this? What will users complain about?" |
Strategic Personas
| Persona | Focus | Questions They Ask |
|---|
| CTO | Technical strategy | "Does this align with our technical direction?" |
| Skeptic | Risks | "Why will this fail? What's being overlooked?" |
| Optimist | Opportunities | "What's the best-case outcome? What doors does this open?" |
| Historian | Precedent | "What similar approaches have worked or failed?" |
| Simplifier | Complexity | "Is this the simplest solution? What can we remove?" |
Domain-Specific Personas
For API Design
- API consumer: "Is this easy to integrate? Are the errors helpful?"
- Documentation writer: "Can I explain this clearly?"
For Database Changes
- DBA: "What's the migration impact? What about backups?"
- Data analyst: "Can I query this efficiently? Is the schema intuitive?"
For Frontend
- Accessibility expert: "Can everyone use this? What about screen readers?"
- Mobile developer: "Does this work on slow connections? Small screens?"
For ML/AI
- ML engineer: "What's the training/inference cost? Is the model interpretable?"
- Data scientist: "Is the data representative? What are the biases?"
Problem-Type Thinking Guides
Debugging
- Reproduce the issue
- Channel QA Engineer: "What's the minimal repro case?"
- Channel Detective: "What changed recently? What's different about failing cases?"
- Channel Skeptic: "Is this actually a bug or expected behavior?"
Architecture
- Understand requirements deeply
- Channel Simplifier: "What's the simplest architecture that works?"
- Channel SRE: "How does this fail? How do we monitor it?"
- Channel Future Maintainer: "Will this make sense in 2 years?"
Performance
- Measure first (don't guess)
- Channel Performance Engineer: "Where's the bottleneck? Is it CPU, memory, I/O?"
- Channel Skeptic: "Is this optimization worth the complexity?"
- Channel Customer: "Does this matter to users?"
Security
- Identify attack surface
- Channel Attacker: "How would I exploit this?"
- Channel Security Engineer: "What's the threat model? What's the blast radius?"
- Channel Auditor: "Can we prove this is secure? What's the evidence?"
Keywords
think, think hard, ultrathink, ultra think, super think, mega think, super mega think, deep analysis, consider carefully, really think, do a good job, analyze deeply, extended thinking
