New: 98,000+ skills indexed from GitHub repos with 100+ stars · every skill safety-checkedBrowse top skillsTop skills
Esc to closeBrowse all skills
Submit a skillBrowse skills
Submit a skillBrowse skills

Agent skill

Thinking Effectuation

by tjboudreaux in tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

Under genuine uncertainty with no reliable forecast, inventory means, cap downside at affordable loss, act for commitments, and let goals emerge from controllable moves.

MITAuto-check passed

Install Thinking Effectuation

skills CLI
$ npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-effectuation -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills thinking-effectuation --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/thinking-effectuation .claude/skills/thinking-effectuation && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.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/

Facts

Skill name
thinking-effectuation
GitHub stars
1.6k
Token cost
~977 tokens
SKILL.md length
522 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
26
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Under genuine uncertainty with no reliable forecast, inventory means, cap downside at affordable loss, act for commitments, and let goals emerge from controllable moves.

  • Works in 6 steps: Inventory means only. List who you are… → Cap affordable loss. State the maximum… → Choose one controllable next action.… → …
  • SKILL.md covers When to Use, When NOT to Use, Procedure and Output, plus 1 more section
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Thinking Effectuation is an agent skill from tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills. Under genuine uncertainty with no reliable forecast, inventory means, cap downside at affordable loss, act for commitments, and let goals emerge from controllable moves.

Its SKILL.md is about 980 tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

The repository describes itself as: 28 eval-informed mental models and critical-thinking skills for Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Cursor, and other Agent Skills-compatible tools. The licence is MIT.

Example prompts

  • “/thinking-effectuation”

Workflow steps

6 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Inventory means only. List who you are (skills, constraints, values), what you know (domain, tools, data), and who you know (reachable…
  2. Cap affordable loss. State the maximum time, money, reputation, and opportunity cost you can lose and still continue. If the proposed step…
  3. Choose one controllable next action. Prefer the smallest action that can yield either (a) a real commitment from someone else or (b)…
  4. Seek commitments, not opinions. Share the working means-based offer. Anyone who commits resources, access, or work becomes a co-creator…
  5. Leverage contingencies. Treat surprises as new means: failed hires, competitor moves, off-roadmap requests. Ask "how can this expand…
  6. Update means and goal, then stop or loop. Fold new means and commitments into the inventory; restate the emerging goal. Stop when a viable…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 7b8fece. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    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.

  • Runs code

    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.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Thinking Effectuation loads about 977 tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 48 tokens; SKILL.md has 522 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~48
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~977

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.

Safety

Auto-check passed

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.

SKILL.md

The full file from tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills at commit 7b8fece, republished under its MIT licence (© tjboudreaux). 522 words, ~977 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/thinking-effectuation/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
thinking-effectuation
description
Under genuine uncertainty with no reliable forecast, inventory means, cap downside at affordable loss, act for commitments, and let goals emerge from controllable moves.
disable-model-invocation
true

Effectuation

Under Knightian uncertainty, start from available means and affordable loss—not a fixed goal and predicted return. Create the path through controllable action and real commitments.

When to Use

  • The market, technology, or problem is novel enough that outcome probabilities are not trustworthy.
  • Means are clearer than the goal: identity, skills, assets, and network exist before a fixed target does.
  • A small action can buy information or a partner commitment without risking ruin.
  • Plans keep breaking because the environment shifts faster than forecasts.

When NOT to Use

  • The path is predictable: known market, knowable unit economics, established playbook → use causal planning.
  • A single wrong step is ruinous or irreversible → de-risk first; do not treat affordable-loss steps as free.
  • The goal is already fixed and resources are the only uncertainty → plan to the goal.
  • Routine execution with settled requirements → act; do not re-inventory means.

Procedure

  1. Inventory means only. List who you are (skills, constraints, values), what you know (domain, tools, data), and who you know (reachable partners, users, resources). Reject "what would be needed for an ideal plan" as input.
  2. Cap affordable loss. State the maximum time, money, reputation, and opportunity cost you can lose and still continue. If the proposed step exceeds any cap, redesign the step smaller or stop.
  3. Choose one controllable next action. Prefer the smallest action that can yield either (a) a real commitment from someone else or (b) discriminating information. Act inside the loss cap; do not optimize expected return.
  4. Seek commitments, not opinions. Share the working means-based offer. Anyone who commits resources, access, or work becomes a co-creator and may reshape the goal. Discard non-committing feedback as non-binding.
  5. Leverage contingencies. Treat surprises as new means: failed hires, competitor moves, off-roadmap requests. Ask "how can this expand control?" not "how do we restore the old plan?"
  6. Update means and goal, then stop or loop. Fold new means and commitments into the inventory; restate the emerging goal. Stop when a viable path is controlled enough to execute, the loss cap is exhausted without traction, or uncertainty collapses into a predictable plan (then switch to causal planning).
Show full SKILL.md (167 more words)Show less

Output

Emit an effectuation brief:

  • means: identity / knowledge / network actually available now
  • affordable_loss: hard caps (time, money, reputation, opportunity)
  • next_action: one controllable step inside those caps
  • commitments_sought_or_won: who must put skin in the game, and what changed if they did
  • contingencies_used: surprises turned into means (or none)
  • emerging_goal: current goal shaped by means and commitments (may differ from the starting wish)
  • stop_or_loop: continue under effectuation, switch to causal planning, or halt

Verification

  • Falsify means-first claims: if the brief starts from a fixed goal and backfills resources, rewrite from means or abandon effectuation.
  • Loss-cap check: every recommended action must fit inside stated affordable loss; if not, shrink or stop.
  • Commitment test: progress that depends only on predictions or uncommitted interest is invalid—require at least one real commitment or a cheap information gain.
  • Over-application guard: if a reliable forecast and known playbook exist, do not force effectuation; plan causally.
  • Stop: after one means → loss-cap → action → commitment cycle with an explicit stop/loop decision; do not endless-explore under the effectuation label.

© tjboudreaux, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/thinking-effectuation of tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 7b8fece

Compare with similar skills

Thinking Effectuation 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.

Thinking Effectuation compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Thinking Effectuation this skilltjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills1.6k—~977Automated safety check: PassMIT
Timesfm ForecastingK-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills48k1 repos~2.4kAutomated safety check: NotesApache-2.0
TimesFM Forecastinggoogle-research/timesfm34k—~4.7kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Forecast Accuracy Reviewdavila7/claude-code-templates32k—~884Automated safety check: PassMIT
Inventory Demand Planningsickn33/agentic-awesome-skills47k8 repos~6.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Uncertainty And UnitsK-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills48k1 repos~5.4kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT

Similar skills

  • Timesfm Forecasting

    K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills

    Performs zero-shot time-series forecasting with Google's TimesFM, including regular-grid CSV preparation, quantile forecasts, XReg covariates, and held-out evaluation.

    48k GitHub starsUsed in 1 repo~2.4k tokens
    Data & AnalyticsAuto-check: notes

  • TimesFM Forecasting

    google-research/timesfm

    Forecasts any univariate time series zero-shot with Google's TimesFM model, returning point forecasts and calibrated prediction intervals without training.

    34k GitHub stars~4.7k tokensUpdated 9 days ago
    Data & AnalyticsAuto-check passed

  • Forecast Accuracy Review

    davila7/claude-code-templates

    Evaluate demand-forecast quality honestly - WMAPE, bias and Forecast Value Added against a naive benchmark over a rolling-origin backtest.

    32k GitHub stars~884 tokensUpdated today
    Data & AnalyticsAuto-check passed

  • Inventory Demand Planning

    sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills

    Codified expertise for demand forecasting, safety stock optimisation, replenishment planning, and promotional lift estimation at multi-location retailers.

    47k GitHub starsUsed in 8 repos~6.5k tokens
    Data & AnalyticsAuto-check passed

  • Uncertainty And Units

    K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills

    Tracks physical units and propagates measurement uncertainty in scientific calculations using pint and uncertainties.

    48k GitHub starsUsed in 1 repo~5.4k tokens
    Research & ScienceAuto-check: notes

  • Commercial Forecaster

    alirezarezvani/claude-skills

    A skill your agent uses when building a quarterly bookings forecast, ARR projection, pipeline forecast, NRR projection, or commit/best-case/pipe-only board number — especially when the CRO needs to…

    28k GitHub stars~3k tokensUpdated 1 mo ago
    Marketing & SEOAuto-check passed

More from tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

All 26 skills in this repo

  • Thinking Bounded Rationality

    tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

    A skill your agent uses when search or investigation could run forever.

    1.6k GitHub stars~703 tokensUpdated 2 mo ago
    Auto-check passed

  • Thinking Circle Of Competence

    tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

    A skill your agent uses when a specific claim may lack grounding.

    1.6k GitHub stars~733 tokensUpdated 2 mo ago
    Auto-check passed

  • Thinking Lindy Effect

    tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

    A skill your agent uses when longevity of a non-perishable option matters.

    1.6k GitHub stars~650 tokensUpdated 2 mo ago
    Auto-check passed

  • Thinking Via Negativa

    tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

    A skill your agent uses when the reflex is to add a feature, layer, or process.

    1.6k GitHub stars~735 tokensUpdated 2 mo ago
    Auto-check passed

  • Thinking Cynefin

    tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

    When the right response mode is unclear, classify the cause-effect domain first; decompose disorder.

    1.6k GitHub stars~651 tokensUpdated 2 mo ago
    Auto-check passed

  • Thinking Five Whys Plus

    tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills

    When a fault is localized and the proximate cause is known but the systemic root is not, chain evidence-linked whys with a counterfactual stop and a countermeasure.

    1.6k GitHub stars~881 tokensUpdated 2 mo ago
    Auto-check passed

Questions about Thinking Effectuation

What does Thinking Effectuation do?

Under genuine uncertainty with no reliable forecast, inventory means, cap downside at affordable loss, act for commitments, and let goals emerge from controllable moves. Thinking Effectuation is an agent skill from tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills. Under genuine uncertainty with no reliable forecast, inventory means, cap downside at affordable loss, act for commitments, and let goals emerge from controllable moves.

How do I install Thinking Effectuation in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-effectuation -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/thinking-effectuation in tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills) into .claude/skills/thinking-effectuation in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Thinking Effectuation in Codex?

Run `npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-effectuation -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/thinking-effectuation in tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills) into .agents/skills/thinking-effectuation in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Thinking Effectuation in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-effectuation -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/thinking-effectuation, .gemini/skills/thinking-effectuation, .github/skills/thinking-effectuation and .opencode/skills/thinking-effectuation in your project.

What does Thinking Effectuation need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Thinking Effectuation is instructions for the agent only.

Does Thinking Effectuation access the network?

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.

Is Thinking Effectuation safe to install?

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.

What licence does Thinking Effectuation use?

Thinking Effectuation is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Thinking Effectuation use?

About 977 tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 3.9k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Thinking Effectuation?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Thinking Effectuation: Timesfm Forecasting (K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills, 48k stars), TimesFM Forecasting (google-research/timesfm, 34k stars), Forecast Accuracy Review (davila7/claude-code-templates, 32k stars) and Inventory Demand Planning (sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills, 47k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Thinking Effectuation?

tjboudreaux (a GitHub user) maintains it in tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills, which has 1,612 GitHub stars. The repository holds 26 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 7, 2026.

Source: tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.