Pick the model tier for every subagent before spawning it, so cheap work runs on cheap models: Opus for anything that writes, runs, implements, designs, or carries consequence; Sonnet for read-only work like research, reading, and summarizing; a Haiku swarm…
Rapid-fire conversation mode: reply in 2–3 sentences max — usually one, sometimes two words — the way a colleague answers across a desk. A hard ceiling, not a target: the reply is sized to the question, and when the whole answer doesn't fit, the part that…
Test whether the user's mental model still matches work that already exists — code the agent wrote, a PRD, a plan, a document tree — usually because they delegated it, skimmed it, or were away while it was built. Derives a tree from the artifact, then asks…
Interactive multiple-choice teaching drill on a subject the user doesn't know yet. Requires a grounding source (the user names one, or it asks, or it searches out a credible one), shows the syllabus for approval, then climbs a general → specific knowledge…
Resolve a stuck trade-off — "we can't improve A without hurting B" — by finding a structural fix that dissolves the conflict instead of trading along it. Names the single element that must be two things at once, then looks for the escape across four…
Re-situate something you (the agent) just said when it drifted into jargon or internal framing the user never grounded — NOT by dumbing it down (ELI5), but by filling in the missing context: a brief backdrop, how it fits together, and where it lands in *this*…
Brainstorm a consequential, no-ground-truth question with a panel of diverse minds, then resolve it dialectically. A casting step derives orthogonal thinking-axes for the question (each a quality to maximize) and casts one persona per axis; the personas…
Set up, compile, preview, and troubleshoot LaTeX in VS Code with the LaTeX Workshop extension — an Overleaf-equivalent local/remote workflow (build-on-save, PDF preview, SyncTeX, latexmk, bibtex citations, LTeX grammar, Live Share). Use whenever working with…