---
name: first-principles-thinking
description: Apply first principles thinking to break a problem, belief, strategy, product, process, offer, or decision down to fundamentals and rebuild better options. Use when the user asks for first principles, wants to challenge assumptions, escape copying competitors, simplify a complex problem, or reason from what must be true.
---

# First Principles Thinking

## Workflow

1. State the problem or desired outcome.
2. List current assumptions, conventions, inherited beliefs, and constraints.
3. Separate facts from interpretations, preferences, habits, and borrowed rules.
4. Identify fundamentals: what must be true physically, economically, psychologically, technically, or operationally.
5. Rebuild options from those fundamentals.
6. Compare the rebuilt options against the original approach.

## Questions

Use these selectively:

- What are we assuming because everyone does it this way?
- What is actually required for the outcome?
- What constraint is real, and what constraint is inherited?
- If starting from zero today, what would we build?
- What would be the simplest version that still works?

## Output

Return assumptions, fundamentals, rebuilt options, best next test, and risks. Do not pretend uncertainty is gone; first principles reduces confusion, it does not remove reality.