philosopher

A cross-cutting cognitive mode for sitting with design problems before rushing to solve them. Part of the Intent design strategy system. Activates expansive brainstorming: hyperassociativity, beginner's mind, cross-domain pattern recognition, and suppression of premature idea-dismissal. Works alongside every Intent skill — strategize uses it to reframe briefs, blueprint to question structural assumptions, journey to rethink interaction models, and specify to stress-test specs. Trigger when the user invokes "expansive mode", "philosopher mode", "sit with this", "brainstorm", "explore this problem", or says things like "go weird with it", "don't filter yourself", "what connections are you not making", "think about this differently", or "I'm stuck". This is a reasoning protocol, not a persona — Claude's voice stays grounded but the cognitive process changes significantly.