# FOCUS — AI Agent Skill **Four rules that prevent AI agents from producing fast, wrong answers.** > "Being slow is correct. Being rushed is wrong." --- ## The Problem This Solves AI agents are fast. Fast is dangerous. Without a structured thinking protocol, an AI agent will: - Answer in 10 seconds what requires 10 minutes of thought - Fix symptoms instead of root causes - Produce solutions with circular dependencies - Jump to the next task before the current one is verified - Miss the one detail that breaks everything FOCUS enforces a four-gate protocol that no output can bypass. --- ## What It Does FOCUS is a **Claude skill** (compatible with Claude Code, Claude.ai, and any Claude-powered agent) that activates a mandatory reasoning sequence before any suggestion, plan, or code reaches the user. ``` THINK → SIMPLIFY → SURGICAL → STAY-ON-GOAL → Output ``` Each gate is a binary check. Fail one gate → return to THINK and restart. --- ## The Four Rules ### 1. THINK Plan before suggesting. Gap-analyse the plan. Produce three internal revisions. Only the third revision reaches the user. **Without THINK:** > "Use PostgreSQL with tables for trades and positions." **With THINK:** > Full schema with bracket order relationships, idempotency keys, audit trail, > P&L separation, instrument metadata, BRIN indexes, and range partitioning. > Root cause of every design decision documented. --- ### 2. SIMPLIFY The solution must travel in a straight line from input to output. No loops. No circular dependencies. No branching mid-execution. **Without SIMPLIFY:** > "Check Firestore first. If empty, check IB. If IB times out, check in-memory. > If in-memory is empty, retry in 5 minutes." **With SIMPLIFY:** > "Read IB portfolio() directly. Close every non-zero position. Record P&L. Done." --- ### 3. SURGICAL One solution. The best solution available anywhere in the world. Reference real-world superhuman examples. Fix root causes, not symptoms. Map the complete decision tree. Identify every failure mode. **Without SURGICAL:** > "Add a filter to ignore stock tickers in the news scorer." > _(Symptom fix — a different irrelevant headline breaks it tomorrow.)_ **With SURGICAL:** > "Add instrument universe check at architecture level before any halt write. > Only instruments actually trades can trigger a halt. Zero patches needed." > _(Root fix — architecturally impossible for an irrelevant headline to halt trading.)_ --- ### 4. STAY-ON-GOAL One task at a time. Complete it so thoroughly that no mistake is findable. Do not fix unrelated problems inline. Verify the output. Verify the verification. **Without STAY-ON-GOAL:** > Developer fixes signal display and also restructures the force graph, changes > the colour scheme, refactors the WebSocket handler. The colour change breaks > dark mode. The original fix gets lost in the noise. **With STAY-ON-GOAL:** > Fix: change one word in one query. Verify with curl. Commit. Done. > Related problems: written down for the next task. Not touched. --- ## Who This Is For - **AI engineers** building Claude Code agents for production systems - **Solo founders** using Claude to build and ship without a team - **Anyone** where a wrong AI answer has real-world consequences: money, health, legal, security, production infrastructure --- ## Installation ### For Claude Code Add to your project's `.claude/skills/` directory: ```bash git clone https://github.com/r1973-sudo/focus-skill.git cp -r focus-skill/FOCUS .claude/skills/FOCUS ``` Then reference in your prompts: ``` /focus ``` Or load manually: ``` Use the FOCUS skill for this task. ``` ### For Claude.ai Projects 1. Copy the contents of `FOCUS/SKILL.md` 2. Add to your project's custom instructions 3. Begin any high-stakes conversation with: "Apply FOCUS protocol" ### For Custom Agents The FOCUS protocol is model-agnostic. Copy the four rules into any agent's system prompt. The gate sequence works with any LLM capable of following structured instructions. --- ## When to Activate FOCUS | Situation | Intensity | | --------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | | Production code, real money, real users | Maximum — all 4 rules | | Architecture decisions | Maximum — all 4 rules | | Recurring bugs that keep coming back | Maximum — all 4 rules | | Complex multi-step plans | Maximum — all 4 rules | | "Make sure this is right" | Maximum — all 4 rules | | General feature development | Standard — all 4 rules, abbreviated | | Quick factual questions | Minimum — THINK only | **Special rule:** If you feel confident the answer is obvious — activate maximum intensity. Confidence is when mistakes most often happen. --- ## Pause Gates FOCUS includes explicit pause conditions — moments where the protocol **stops** and restarts from THINK: - Fewer than 3 gaps identified in gap analysis → restart - Suggestion-2 looks like Suggestion-1 → restart - Solution has loops or circular dependencies → restart - Root cause not identified (only symptom) → restart - Any failure mode has no detection mechanism → restart - Output scope grew beyond the stated goal → reset --- ## Real-World Reference Points FOCUS borrows from humans who achieved superhuman outcomes: | Person | Achievement | FOCUS principle | | -------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | Atul Gawande | Reduced surgical mortality 47% with a checklist | Pre-execution verification | | Chesley Sullenberger | Landed 155 people on the Hudson in 208 seconds | Preparation enables impossible execution | | Paul Singer | 47 years without a losing year | Paranoid failure analysis is safety | | SpaceX | Reusable rockets — considered impossible | First principles beat convention | Ask before outputting: _"Would Paul Singer sign off on this risk analysis?"_ --- ## Contributing FOCUS is open source under the MIT licence. Contributions welcome: - New BEFORE/AFTER examples from real domains - Domain-specific extensions (medical, legal, security, finance) - Translations - Integration guides for other AI frameworks (LangChain, AutoGPT, CrewAI, Goose) Open an issue or submit a pull request. --- ## Licence MIT — use it, fork it, extend it, ship it. --- ## Author Built by [ R](https://github.com/r1973-sudo) while building three parallel ventures using Claude as the primary engineering tool. FOCUS emerged from the real cost of fast, wrong AI answers in production trading systems and fintech platforms. --- _"The goal is not to be fast. The goal is to be right the first time."_