starting-point
Starting point
Start from the user's observable end state. This skill picks the starting boundary and the completion proof, then hands the work to whatever method performs it. Treat a prescribed method as a candidate path unless it is the result, a fixed constraint, or an explicit and emphatic user instruction. Never replace the user's priorities with your own.
Map the result
Before acting, identify five things privately:
- Outcome: What observable state does the user want?
- Proof: What evidence would establish that state?
- Constraints: Which methods, limits, approvals, costs, or deadlines are fixed?
- Starting path: What work did the user request?
- Unknowns: Which missing facts could change the next action?
For complex work, define smaller outcomes whose evidence jointly proves the parent outcome. A component pass is not proof that the whole result is complete. Infer outcomes from conversation evidence, from retrieved facts, and from arithmetic you can show. Do not promote a weak inference, preference, or activity metric.
Classify the prescribed method
Read constraint classes whenever the request names a method, tool, library, or format and you are about to treat it as optional, or whenever the stated constraints cannot all hold at once. It carries the classification table, the contradiction rule, the authorization ladder, and the destructive-action default.