Think About It

Think About It

Free-form counterpart to the incubation loop. No hypotheses, no confidence tracking, no fixed move rotation - just the same topic viewed through a different KB lens each pass, until the perspectives weave into something worth keeping.

Purpose

Put Cornelius in open thinking mode on a topic. Where /incubation-loop converges on an answer to a question, /think-about-it circles a topic - each pass looks through one distinct perspective drawn from the knowledge base and writes down what that lens reveals, distorts, or contradicts. The exploration ends with a Weave: a synthesis of the threads and candidate permanent-note seeds.

Loop Compatibility Contract

This skill is designed to be driven by a loop (/loop, /trinity:loop, or manual re-invocation):

• One perspective pass per invocation (single-task rule; each pass completes in well under 10 minutes)
• All state lives in the topic file - safe across separate context windows; no in-session memory assumed
• Fixed reply format (Step 7) so {{previous_response}} chaining and Until-mode sentinels work
• [[DONE]] appears in the reply if and only if the topic file's status is woven - tied to verifiable file state, not self-assessment
• Idempotent on woven topics - re-invoking a finished topic re-reports the Weave and [[DONE]] without writing anything

State Dependencies

Deliberately NOT in THINKING-REGISTRY.md - freeform topics are invisible to the incubation loop. The two engines never touch each other's state. If a Weave concludes the topic deserves rigorous treatment, promote it manually via /manage-thinking-topics.

Process

Step 1: Resolve Topic and State

$ARGUMENTS = the topic, free text. Slugify to kebab-case.

date '+%Y-%m-%d'
ls "Brain/05-Meta/Thinking/Freeform/" 2>/dev/null

• File Brain/05-Meta/Thinking/Freeform/[slug].md missing → create it from the template below (pass_count: 0, status: exploring), then continue.
• No arguments given → list existing freeform topics with their status and pass counts, exit cleanly (no [[DONE]]).
• File exists with status: woven → reply with the Weave summary and end with [[DONE]]. Write nothing.

Step 2: Pick the Next Lens

Read lenses_used from frontmatter. Choose exactly ONE unused lens from the deck:

Hub lenses (the KB's thematic centers of gravity): Dopamine & Motivation · Flow & Peak Performance · Buddhism & Consciousness · AI Agents & Architecture · Decision-Making & Biases · Identity & Belief Systems · Attention Economics

Framework lenses (the user's original frameworks - view the topic from inside one): Uncertainty-Dopamine-Belief Loop · The Folder Paradigm · Cross-Domain Consilience · External Anchor Principle · Self-Construction Stack · Three Gaps Framework · Four Pillars of Deep Agency · Safety as Velocity

Wildcard lens (auto-discovery style - a random permanent note from an unrelated cluster):

python3 -c "import random,glob; print(random.choice(glob.glob('Brain/02-Permanent/*.md')))"

Re-roll once if the sampled note is obviously about the topic itself; otherwise the friction is the point.

Selection rules:

• Never reuse a lens within a topic.
• Prefer the unused lens with the most generative friction - not the most obviously related one. Obvious relevance produces summary; friction produces thought.
• By pass 4 at least one wildcard must have been used; if not, this pass is a wildcard.

Step 3: Gather KB Material Through That Lens

# --no-track: autonomous reads must not train q-values (learning hygiene, same as incubation-loop)
# read role: reasoning (contract: scope-mount) - the reasoning mount, so a lens can land on what the user has READ, not only what he wrote
BRAIN_READ_SCOPE=core,Books,document-insights python3 resources/local-brain-search/search.py "[topic] [lens core terms]" --limit 6 --mode spreading --no-track 2>/dev/null
BRAIN_READ_SCOPE=core,Books,document-insights python3 resources/local-brain-search/search.py "[lens core concept]" --limit 4 --mode spreading --no-track 2>/dev/null

Read the 3-4 most promising notes in full. These ground the pass - every pass must cite real notes, and a Books/ or Document Insights/ note is cited as encountered material, never as the user's view.