Raise ambition

A request usually encodes the user's best guess at how to get what they want, sized to what they believed was possible. Find the more ambitious version of the task along three axes, let the user choose how far to go where that choice changes what is delivered, then carry it out and check the result against something other than your own judgment.

• Altitude: move from the requested deliverable toward the outcome it serves.
• Depth: do the task the way the field's best practitioners would, down to their raw material, instruments, and standards of proof.
• Range: bring in fields the task does not obviously need, for the techniques they contribute.

Doing the same work faster is not this skill's concern. Ambition means a higher or deeper version of the task, not a bigger one: more pages, more features, or more words do not count.

Establish the task and the goal beyond it

Start from the active request and anything already produced. If the user invoked this skill on finished work, treat that work as the starting rung. If the conversation contains no task, ask for one.

State briefly:

• the literal request and its deliverable;
• who uses the deliverable and what should happen after it is delivered: the goal beyond the goal;
• what a result would look like that the user would be surprised was possible.