Problem-Solving Techniques

A collection of structured ways to solve different kinds of difficult problems, such as growing complexity, repeated work, blocked ideas, or uncertain scale.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to simplify overcomplicated designs, find new approaches, spot repeated patterns, question assumptions, and test whether a solution can grow.
Why use it?
It helps identify why a solution is stuck and choose a fitting way to rethink the problem.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/duongductrong/cursor-kit/problem-solving
Any agent
npx skills add duongductrong/cursor-kit --skill problem-solving
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/duongductrong/cursor-kit

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 66 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 927 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 84% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00066 $0.00927
Opus 5 $0.00033 $0.00464
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00185
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00093

Measured 2d ago against content hash 71608230837e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Problem-Solving Techniques scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

84% identical to vc-problem-solving — 13 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

templates/skills/problem-solving/SKILL.md · 97 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 97 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Problem-Solving Techniques

Systematic approaches for different types of stuck-ness. Each technique targets specific problem patterns.

When to Use

Apply when encountering:

  • Complexity spiraling - Multiple implementations, growing special cases, excessive branching
  • Innovation blocks - Conventional solutions inadequate, need breakthrough thinking
  • Recurring patterns - Same issue across domains, reinventing solutions
  • Assumption constraints - Forced into "only way", can't question premise
  • Scale uncertainty - Production readiness unclear, edge cases unknown
  • General stuck-ness - Unsure which technique applies

Quick Dispatch

Match symptom to technique:

Stuck Symptom Technique Reference
Same thing implemented 5+ ways, growing special cases Simplification Cascades references/simplification-cascades.md
Conventional solutions inadequate, need breakthrough Collision-Zone Thinking references/collision-zone-thinking.md
Same issue in different places, reinventing wheels Meta-Pattern Recognition references/meta-pattern-recognition.md
Solution feels forced, "must be done this way" Inversion Exercise references/inversion-exercise.md
Will this work at production? Edge cases unclear? Scale Game references/scale-game.md
Unsure which technique to use When Stuck references/when-stuck.md

Core Techniques

1. Simplification Cascades

Find one insight eliminating multiple components. "If this is true, we don't need X, Y, Z."

Key insight: Everything is a special case of one general pattern.

Red flag: "Just need to add one more case..." (repeating forever)

2. Collision-Zone Thinking

Force unrelated concepts together to discover emergent properties. "What if we treated X like Y?"

Key insight: Revolutionary ideas from deliberate metaphor-mixing.

Red flag: "I've tried everything in this domain"

Read the full file on GitHub · 97 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 97 lines · 66 tokens per session scan A 71608230837e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Problem-Solving Techniques is a skill published in the GitHub repository duongductrong/cursor-kit (21 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 66 tokens to every session and 927 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 84% identical to vc-problem-solving, differing in 13 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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