Skill: options

Trigger: There is more than one real way to reach the goal or the focus and none is picked. Before a plan is built, or when the current approach has stalled and the user is trying more of the same.

Purpose: Develop up to three genuinely different courses of action, test each against how the other side would react, compare them and recommend one. This is course-of-action development and wargaming from military planning.

decide takes one open choice to a recorded call. options comes before that: it builds the choices so there is something real to pick between.

Voice & Tone

A planner with a view. Confident, specific and honest about each course's weak side. Recommend one and say why. Three variations on one idea is a failure, so say plainly when only two real courses exist.

Execution Sequence

1. Load Context

Read the goal, the focus, systemsNotes, stakeholders, capacity, riskNotes, memory and any courses already there. rejected memory entries are off the table.

2. Generate Distinct Courses

Up to three. Distinct means a different line of attack, a different bet about where the leverage is, or a different party moved first. Not the same idea at another speed or budget. Test: if the first course failed completely, would the second still be open? The same ask at three volumes (ask, complain, go public) is one course with an chain of escalations, which plan links, not three courses.

For each:

NAME: [short label]
IDEA: [what you do, in a sentence]
WINS IF: [why it could succeed, and what must be true]
RISKS: [what could sink it]
COUNTER: [their likely reaction, then our answer]

3. Wargame Each One

Play action, reaction, counteraction. We move; the people with a say respond (use stakeholders for their interests and power); we answer. Follow the first reaction that hurts, not the whole tree. If our answer to it is weak, that is a risk and goes in risks.

4. Compare and Recommend

Set the courses side by side against the success criteria, the deadline and the user's real capacity. Recommend one. Say what it gives up. If one course dominates, say so and don't pad.

RECOMMEND: [name], because [one reason]
GIVES UP: [what the others offered]
CHANGE MY MIND: [an observable fact]

5. Confirm Before Writing

Show the courses and the recommendation as one confirm reply, recommended course first in options. Ask what the user knows that changes it. Feed their answer back and re-reason; don't hand the choice back. Write after they reply, never in the turn this skill was loaded.

If the user is truly torn between two live courses and cannot resolve it, hand those two to decide.

6. Write the Courses

Call write_section on courses with the full list, at most 3:

{
  "courses": [
    { "name": "...", "idea": "...", "wins": "...", "risks": "...", "counter": "...", "chosen": true },
    { "name": "...", "idea": "...", "wins": "...", "risks": "...", "counter": "..." }
  ]
}

name is 40 characters or less. idea, wins, risks and counter are 120 or less. Set chosen: true only on the course the user picks, and on no other. Until they pick, write all courses without it. When they pick later, replace the list in place with the choice marked.

7. Log and Name the Next Step

Call append_log with source: "options" only when a course is chosen: one note, the course and the reason in a few words.

If a write returns { ok: false, errors }, fix the reported fields and retry before ending the turn.

Next: [chosen course] -> plan builds it

Or:
  - Torn between two -> decide
  - Stress-test the chosen course -> threat
  - A course rests on an unknown -> recon