---
user-invocable: false
name: methods
description: How to think through work, distilled from a stronger model's demonstrated moves - invoke when STARTING to investigate a confusing behavior or debug a root cause; design or evaluate an approach/proposal; plan a multi-step or long-running task; verify work, review findings, or reconcile conflicting reports; write rules, reports, or docs someone else must act on.
---

# Methods — how to think, by moment

Five domains, each distilled from moves a stronger model actually made (the examples cite
real founding-session events; most are verifiable in the repo — `git log`, the doctrine
files, `archive/` — and the rest come from the founding session's own recorded account).
Governance — *whether* to delegate, escalate, stop, or claim done — lives in the `doctrine`
skill; this bundle is *how to work the problem* once you're in it.

## Route by moment

| You are about to… | Read (in this folder) |
|---|---|
| Investigate a bug, a confusing behavior, an unfamiliar system, an anomaly | `investigate.md` |
| Propose, design, or evaluate an approach (incl. someone else's suggestion) | `design.md` |
| Start a task with more than ~3 steps, or one that could be interrupted | `execute.md` |
| Check work — yours or a reviewer's; weigh conflicting reports | `verify.md` |
| Write anything another model or person must act on (rules, reports, docs) | `communicate.md` |

Read the ONE file that matches; each is self-contained. If two match (e.g. designing a
verification), read both — they're short. **When a task fires this bundle AND `doctrine`** (e.g. "review
this PR" is both a delegation decision and a verification method): doctrine FIRST — decide
whether and to whom to delegate — then the matching methods file for how to do the work.

## The stance that generates all five

Every belief is either **verified this session** or **hearsay** — the labeling discipline
and the rest of the stance live in `investigate.md` §3, which is their single home.