Problem Solving Skill for Claude
Creative problem-solving techniques for breaking through stuck points - includes collision-zone thinking, inversion, pattern recognition, and simplification
Install
one command, takes just this skill from the repositorynpx skills add https://github.com/mrgoonie/claudekit-skills --skill problem-solvingWhat comes with it
1 651 bytes besides the instructionThe instruction itself
11 sections, as written by the authorProblem-Solving Skills
A collection of techniques for breaking through stuck points and finding elegant solutions.
Available Sub-Skills
When Stuck (Dispatch)
Location: when-stuck/SKILL.md
Start here when stuck. Matches your stuck-type to the right technique. Quick dispatch table for routing to the appropriate sub-skill.
Collision-Zone Thinking
Location: collision-zone-thinking/SKILL.md
Force unrelated concepts together to discover emergent properties. "What if we treated X like Y?" Revolutionary insights come from deliberate metaphor-mixing.
Inversion Exercise
Location: inversion-exercise/SKILL.md
Flip every assumption and see what still works. "What if the opposite were true?" Exposes hidden constraints and alternative approaches.
Meta-Pattern Recognition
Location: meta-pattern-recognition/SKILL.md
Spot patterns appearing in 3+ domains to find universal principles. Extract abstract forms that apply across domains.
Scale Game
Location: scale-game/SKILL.md
Test at extremes (1000x bigger/smaller) to expose fundamental truths. What breaks? What survives? Extremes reveal what normal scales hide.
Simplification Cascades
Location: simplification-cascades/SKILL.md
Find one insight that eliminates multiple components. "If this is true, we don't need X, Y, or Z." Look for unifying principles.
When to Use
| How You're Stuck | Use This |
|------------------|----------|
| Don't know which technique | when-stuck |
| Need breakthrough innovation | collision-zone-thinking |
| Forced by assumptions | inversion-exercise |
| Same issue in different places | meta-pattern-recognition |
| Unsure about production scale | scale-game |
| Complexity spiraling | simplification-cascades |
Quick Reference
Conventional solutions inadequate? → collision-zone-thinking
"This must be done this way"? → inversion-exercise
Same pattern 3+ places? → meta-pattern-recognition
Will it work at scale? → scale-game
Same thing implemented 5+ ways? → simplification-cascades
Core Philosophy
> "One powerful abstraction > ten clever hacks"
These techniques help you find the elegant solution that makes complexity unnecessary, rather than managing complexity through brute force.
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How to use it
Take mrgoonie/problem-solving from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.