Menu

Individual skill

radical-simplification

0upvotes

Cognitive moves for collapsing complexity — reframe, clarify, reduce, decompose, invert, constrain, transfer, generalize, audit — distilled from the working method of mathematicians, physicists, and software engineers known for turning hard problems into simple solutions (Pólya, Feynman, Hamming, Brooks, Knuth, Dijkstra, Lamport, Tao, Grothendieck, Munger, Hofstadter). Use when stuck on a complex problem, when a proposed design feels overengineered, when reviewing code that has accreted accidental complexity, or when the user wants an elegant solution to a hard engineering or product problem. Triggers on phrases like "this feels too complicated", "we are going in circles", "there must be a simpler way", "interview me about this plan", "find the underlying problem", and on stuck-state moments where forward search has run out and the agent needs a different angle.

skills/.curated/radical-simplification/SKILL.md

Read pinned source

Source commit cf93c57cac89d6fc3e4194686000411567f5caf3

What was checked

Matches the observed repository HEAD
Yes
Scanner rules are current
No
Repository scan complete
No
Skill scan complete
No
Observed behavior
Not checked yet
Last checked
Nov 5, 2026

These are observations at the recorded commit, not a guarantee of safety. Review the source before running it.

Install this skill

Choose an agent in your Stack or copy a command below. Commands fetch the pinned commit and copy only this skill directory. Existing destinations are refused. Copying a command does not install anything.

An install command is unavailable: current rules, complete repository and skill scans, an eligible behavior level and a permitted license are required.

Repository context

Repository stars (not skill ratings)
222
Repository last updated
Aug 15, 2026
License
MIT

Observed agent integration: codex

Files and excerpt

File metadata and permitted, redacted excerpts come from the recorded scan. Source links are pinned to that commit.

Browse files
Read excerpt
# Radical Simplification — Cognitive Moves for Collapsing Complex Problems

Distillation of the documented working method of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers who consistently turn complex problems into simple solutions. The skill is not a step list — it is a toolbox of **cognitive moves**, each correcting a specific wrong default a capable model has when faced with complexity. The moves are mostly orthogonal; pick the one that matches the symptom.

This is the **thinking layer** that sits above refactoring (`code-simplifier`), metric design (`deterministic-metric-design`), and reviews (`design-review`). Those skills apply a methodology to a known shape of artifact. This skill is the methodology itself — how to arrive at the simple shape in the first place.

## When to Apply

Use this skill when:

- The user says the problem feels too complicated, that the team is going in circles, or that there must be a simpler way
- A proposed design has accreted parameters, dependencies, or branches and feels overengineered
- A plan has been drafted but unresolved decisions remain, and the agent is about to commit to assumed answers
- A bug investigation has tried several variants of the same approach without progress
- A review surfaces complexity that may be accidental (Brooks) rather than essential
Back to top