Reasoning Skill
Structured reasoning frameworks with mandatory documentation lookup for systematic problem solving.
Overview
This skill wraps two complementary capabilities:
-
Complex Reasoning (
complex-reasoning.md) — Multiple reasoning frameworks (Chain-of-Thought, Tree-of-Thought, Hypothesis-Driven Debugging, Root Cause Analysis) that always query documentation before reasoning and store insights in memory. -
Documentation Lookup (
documentation-lookup.md) — Systematic documentation retrieval using Context7 MCP to ground all decisions in accurate, version-specific library documentation.
When to Use
- Debugging complex issues where root cause is unclear → use Hypothesis-Driven Debugging
- Making architectural decisions with multiple valid approaches → use Tree-of-Thought
- Linear problem-solving with sequential steps → use Chain-of-Thought
- Systemic incidents or repeated failures → use Root Cause Analysis
- Any task involving external libraries or APIs → use Documentation Lookup first
Framework Selection
| Problem Type | Framework | Agent |
|-------------|-----------|-------|
| Linear, sequential | Chain-of-Thought | hypothesis-debugger |
| Multiple valid approaches | Tree-of-Thought | requirements-analyzer |
| Complex bug, unclear root cause | Hypothesis-Driven Debugging | hypothesis-debugger |
| Incident, systemic issue | Root Cause Analysis | root-cause-analyzer |
| Any technology decision | Documentation Lookup | requirements-analyzer |
Core Protocol
MANDATORY before any reasoning about technology:
- Identify technologies involved in the task
- Resolve library IDs via Context7 MCP
- Query relevant documentation
- Ground all reasoning steps in retrieved documentation
See complex-reasoning.md for full reasoning framework details.
See documentation-lookup.md for documentation retrieval protocol.
Integration
Works with: hypothesis-debugger (debugging workflows), root-cause-analyzer (incident analysis), requirements-analyzer (architecture decisions), task-enricher (technical planning).