Using Superpowers
farm-fe/farm
A skill your agent uses when starting any conversation - establishes how to find and use skills, requiring Skill tool invocation before ANY response including clarifying questions
Cognitive moves for collapsing complexity — reframe, clarify, reduce, decompose, invert, constrain, transfer, generalize, audit — distilled from the working method of mathematicians, physicists, and…
$ npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a claude-codeProject install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.
$ gh skill install pproenca/dot-skills radical-simplification --agent claude-codeProject scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/.agents/skills/radical-simplification .claude/skills/radical-simplification && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.
Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/
Install the "radical-simplification" agent skill from https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills/tree/master/.agents/skills/radical-simplification into .claude/skills/radical-simplification/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "radical-simplification", then confirm the skill loads.Claude Code copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$skill-installer install https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills/tree/master/.agents/skills/radical-simplificationType this inside Codex. $skill-installer <name> installs a curated skill from openai/skills. The installer writes to $CODEX_HOME/skills (default ~/.codex/skills). Restart Codex if the skill does not show up.
$ npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a codexProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.codex/skills/.
$ gh skill install pproenca/dot-skills radical-simplification --agent codexProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .agents/skills && cp -r skills-src/.agents/skills/radical-simplification .agents/skills/radical-simplification && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.agents/skills/ instead of .agents/skills for a personal install.
Codex skills documentation · loads skills from .agents/skills/
Install the "radical-simplification" agent skill from https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills/tree/master/.agents/skills/radical-simplification into .agents/skills/radical-simplification/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "radical-simplification", then confirm the skill loads.Codex copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a cursorProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.cursor/skills/.
$ gh skill install pproenca/dot-skills radical-simplification --agent cursorProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .cursor/skills && cp -r skills-src/.agents/skills/radical-simplification .cursor/skills/radical-simplification && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.cursor/skills/ instead of .cursor/skills for a personal install.
Cursor skills documentation · loads skills from .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, .claude/skills/, .codex/skills/
Install the "radical-simplification" agent skill from https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills/tree/master/.agents/skills/radical-simplification into .cursor/skills/radical-simplification/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "radical-simplification", then confirm the skill loads.Cursor copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ gemini skills install https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills.git --path .agents/skills/radical-simplification--scope user (default) or --scope workspace; --path is the subfolder of the repo that holds the skill; --consent skips the security confirmation prompt.
$ npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a gemini-cliProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.gemini/skills/.
$ gh skill install pproenca/dot-skills radical-simplification --agent gemini-cliProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .gemini/skills && cp -r skills-src/.agents/skills/radical-simplification .gemini/skills/radical-simplification && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.gemini/skills/ instead of .gemini/skills for a personal install, then run /skills reload.
Gemini CLI skills documentation · loads skills from .gemini/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "radical-simplification" agent skill from https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills/tree/master/.agents/skills/radical-simplification into .gemini/skills/radical-simplification/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "radical-simplification", then confirm the skill loads.Gemini CLI copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ gh skill install pproenca/dot-skills radical-simplificationInstalls for Copilot at project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Preview a skill first with gh skill preview. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).
$ npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a github-copilotProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.copilot/skills/.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .github/skills && cp -r skills-src/.agents/skills/radical-simplification .github/skills/radical-simplification && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.copilot/skills/ instead of .github/skills for a personal install. Commit .github/skills so cloud agent and code review can use it.
GitHub Copilot skills documentation · loads skills from .github/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "radical-simplification" agent skill from https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills/tree/master/.agents/skills/radical-simplification into .github/skills/radical-simplification/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "radical-simplification", then confirm the skill loads.GitHub Copilot copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a opencodeOpenCode documents no install command of its own. Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.config/opencode/skills/.
$ gh skill install pproenca/dot-skills radical-simplification --agent opencodeProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .opencode/skills && cp -r skills-src/.agents/skills/radical-simplification .opencode/skills/radical-simplification && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.config/opencode/skills/ instead of .opencode/skills for a personal install.
OpenCode skills documentation · loads skills from .opencode/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "radical-simplification" agent skill from https://github.com/pproenca/dot-skills/tree/master/.agents/skills/radical-simplification into .opencode/skills/radical-simplification/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "radical-simplification", then confirm the skill loads.OpenCode copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
radical-simplificationCognitive moves for collapsing complexity — reframe, clarify, reduce, decompose, invert, constrain, transfer, generalize, audit — distilled from the working method of mathematicians, physicists, and…
Radical Simplification is an agent skill from pproenca/dot-skills. 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…
Its SKILL.md is about 2.4k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 27 other files, including reference files and assets (for example `AGENTS.md`, `assets/templates/_template.md` and `metadata.json`).
It sits in Agent Workflows, covering Requirements gathering. The repository describes itself as: A collection of AI agent skills following the Agent Skills open format. The licence is MIT.
9 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.
Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit cf93c57. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.
Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.
From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.
No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.
From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.
No URLs in SKILL.md.
From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.
Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.
From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.
Radical Simplification loads about 2.4k tokens when it runs, and up to ~13k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 224 tokens; SKILL.md has 936 words of instructions outside code blocks.
Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.
The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.
Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.
The full file from pproenca/dot-skills at commit cf93c57, republished under its MIT licence (© pproenca). 936 words, ~2,375 tokens.
.claude/skills/radical-simplification/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 24 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.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.
Use this skill when:
This skill is not for cleaning up code that already does the right thing — that is code-simplifier. Use this when the approach itself is what needs to get simpler.
The nine categories are orthogonal cognitive moves. Match the move to the symptom:
| Symptom | Reach for | First rule to read |
|---|---|---|
| Solving feels off — maybe the wrong problem | Frame | frame-restate-problem |
| Plan drafted but unresolved decisions remain | Clarify | clarify-interview-one-at-a-time |
| Drowning in cases, parameters, branches | Reduce | reduce-toy-case-first |
| Parts are tangled; changes ripple | Decompose | decomp-orthogonal-axes |
| Forward search is exponential or stuck | Invert | invert-work-backwards |
| Missing the structural truth of the system | Constrain | constrain-name-the-invariant |
| Stuck inside the current vocabulary | Transfer | transfer-cross-domain-analogue |
| The specific problem keeps resisting | Generalize | gen-rising-sea |
| Producing fluent output you cannot back up | Audit | audit-feynman-technique |
For category overviews and the ordering rationale, see references/_sections.md.
| # | Category | Prefix | Move | Rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reframe the Problem | frame | Restate, separate essential from accidental, find the decision | 3 |
| 2 | Clarify Through Interview | clarify | One-at-a-time questions with recommended answers; read the source before asking | 2 |
| 3 | Reduce to the Smallest Case | reduce | Toy case, limit cases, Pareto compression | 3 |
| 4 | Decompose Along Orthogonal Axes | decomp | Orthogonal axes, WHAT vs HOW | 2 |
| 5 | Invert the Search | invert | Work backwards, assume failure | 2 |
| 6 | Constrain with Invariants and Symmetries | constrain | Name the invariant, dimensional check | 2 |
| 7 | Transfer From Another Domain | transfer | Cross-domain analogue, vocabulary lock-in | 2 |
| 8 | Generalize Until the Problem Dissolves | gen | Rising sea | 1 |
| 9 | Audit Your Own Understanding | audit | Feynman, name the confusion, Fermi check | 3 |
frame-restate-problem — Restate in your own words before solving; surfaces the wrong-problem case while it is still cheapframe-essential-vs-accidental — Brooks's distinction: name each piece of complexity as inherent or layered-onframe-find-decision-point — Find the decision the answer must change; answer that, not the literal questionclarify-interview-one-at-a-time — Walk the design tree one branch at a time; every question paired with your recommended answer so the user reviews a position, not generates oneclarify-prefer-source-over-asking — If a grep, file read, or runtime check would answer it, do that — only ask what the source cannot tell youreduce-toy-case-first — Solve n=1 fully before generalizing; the structure of the big problem becomes visiblereduce-limit-cases — Probe zero, infinity, empty, identity to expose where the design degradesreduce-pareto-compress — Design for the 20% of inputs that produce 80% of the resultdecomp-orthogonal-axes — Axes are correct when changing one does not force changing another; verbs over today's nounsdecomp-what-vs-how — Write the WHAT before debating the HOW; the spec is the refereeinvert-work-backwards — When forward search is exponential, ask what must be true one step before the goalinvert-assume-failure — Write the postmortem before writing the design (Munger's inversion)constrain-name-the-invariant — The property that does not change is often the answer in disguiseconstrain-dimensional-check — Mismatched units, types, or categories are bugs before they are runtime failurestransfer-cross-domain-analogue — Search for the structural twin in another domain; the twin's solution often transplantstransfer-suspect-vocabulary-lock-in — Suffix accretion (Manager, Helper, Coordinator) signals the original noun is wronggen-rising-sea — Grothendieck's rising sea; the more abstract version is sometimes the easier one — but only if it has fewer concepts, not moreaudit-feynman-technique — Unfold technical shorthand into beginner-vocabulary sentences; the hand-waves are the gapsaudit-name-the-confusion — When stuck, name what you do not know — do not retry variants of the same approachaudit-fermi-sanity-check — Bound the answer order-of-magnitude before producing it; 10× disagreements are the signalcode-simplifier — Refactoring patterns once the right approach is known (this skill ends, that one begins)deterministic-metric-design — Applies this methodology to the specific problem of inventing metricsdesign-review — Applies this methodology to the specific problem of reviewing UIThese moves are load-bearing, not decorative. The wrong default each rule corrects is named in the rule itself — if a rule restates something a capable model already does correctly, cut it. The coverage of the skill is proven by /dev-skill:eval on real complex-problem prompts, not by hitting a rule count.
© pproenca, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file
SKILL.md and 24 other files (references, assets) in .agents/skills/radical-simplification of pproenca/dot-skills.
Open the folder on GitHubat commit cf93c57
Radical Simplification next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.
| Skill | Stars | Used in | Tokens | Auto-check | Licence | Repo updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radical Simplification this skillpproenca/dot-skills | 214 | — | ~2.4k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Using Superpowersfarm-fe/farm | 5.6k | 34 repos | ~1.4k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Interview Meaddyosmani/agent-skills | 102k | 6 repos | ~3.8k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Grillingbestofjs/bestofjs | 3.1k | 30 repos | ~464 | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Agentic Workflow Designerdotnet/Open-XML-SDK | 4.6k | 2 repos | ~3.5k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Ask User QuestionMemTensor/MemOS | 12k | — | ~1k | Automated safety check: Pass | Apache-2.0 |
farm-fe/farm
A skill your agent uses when starting any conversation - establishes how to find and use skills, requiring Skill tool invocation before ANY response including clarifying questions
addyosmani/agent-skills
Asks one question at a time, each with a best guess attached, until the agent is about 95 percent sure what you really want, before any plan, spec or code.
bestofjs/bestofjs
Grill the user relentlessly about a plan, decision, or idea.
dotnet/Open-XML-SDK
Interviews you one question at a time about goal, trigger, permissions and data needs, then drafts a single agentic workflow markdown file.
MemTensor/MemOS
Shows a question as a modal in the interface to clarify a task, collect a preference or get approval, since the user cannot see terminal output.
jnMetaCode/superpowers-zh
Turns a rough idea into an approved design before any code is written, sorting the request into spike, bounded or architectural and enforcing an approval gate.
pproenca/dot-skills
Audio forensics and voice recovery guidelines for CSI-level audio analysis.
pproenca/dot-skills
Guided, scripted pipeline for running JSX/TSX/React codemods safely across large legacy codebases.
pproenca/dot-skills
Create well-structured RFCs and technical proposals for software projects.
pproenca/dot-skills
Developer-experience friction auditing and fixing — slow onboarding, repeated manual setup steps, missing bootstrap/reset/seed scripts, undiscoverable conventions.
pproenca/dot-skills
Turn a rough idea for a language into a complete, implementable specification — a DSL, query, config/data, template, or protocol language — by interviewing the author dimension by dimension until…
pproenca/dot-skills
Drafting Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs) — proposing a Python language feature, a standard library change, an interoperability standard, or an informational/process document for the Python…
Categories
Cognitive moves for collapsing complexity — reframe, clarify, reduce, decompose, invert, constrain, transfer, generalize, audit — distilled from the working method of mathematicians, physicists, and…. Radical Simplification is an agent skill from pproenca/dot-skills. 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).
Radical Simplification fits situations like: stuck on a complex problem; A proposed design feels overengineered; reviewing code that has accreted accidental complexity; the user wants an elegant solution to a hard engineering.
Run `npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (.agents/skills/radical-simplification in pproenca/dot-skills) into .claude/skills/radical-simplification in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.
Run `npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (.agents/skills/radical-simplification in pproenca/dot-skills) into .agents/skills/radical-simplification in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.
Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add pproenca/dot-skills --skill radical-simplification -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/radical-simplification, .gemini/skills/radical-simplification, .github/skills/radical-simplification and .opencode/skills/radical-simplification in your project.
SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Radical Simplification is instructions for the agent only.
SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.
Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.
Radical Simplification is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.
About 2.4k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 9.5k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 11k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.
Skills that share tags, products or a category with Radical Simplification: Using Superpowers (farm-fe/farm, 5.6k stars), Interview Me (addyosmani/agent-skills, 102k stars), Grilling (bestofjs/bestofjs, 3.1k stars) and Agentic Workflow Designer (dotnet/Open-XML-SDK, 4.6k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.
pproenca (a GitHub user) maintains it in pproenca/dot-skills, which has 214 GitHub stars. The repository holds 182 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 15, 2026.
Source: pproenca/dot-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.