first-principles

first-principles is a skill for Claude Code from konglong87/methodology-skills. It costs 58 tokens per session (3,137 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A problem-solving method that starts with basic facts and assumptions instead of copying familiar solutions. It asks what a problem is made of at its most fundamental level.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to rethink complex problems, find the root of performance issues, assess technical choices, and design systems from basic requirements.
Why use it?
It helps when usual approaches fail or when an important assumption may be wrong. This can reveal simpler or less conventional ways to solve a problem.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: positional $N argument.

Good fit Use it to rethink complex problems, find the root of performance issues, assess technical choices, and design systems from basic requirements.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/konglong87/methodology-skills/first-principles
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.

Any agent
npx skills add konglong87/methodology-skills --skill first-principles
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/konglong87/methodology-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for first-principles

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/konglong87/methodology-skills/first-principles/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/konglong87/methodology-skills/first-principles)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/konglong87/methodology-skills/first-principles"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/konglong87/methodology-skills/first-principles/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for first-principles

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/konglong87/methodology-skills/first-principles"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/konglong87/methodology-skills/first-principles.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 58 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,137 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found 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 5.1 $0.00058 $0.03137
Opus 5 $0.00029 $0.01569
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00627
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00314

Measured 8d ago against content hash 13f8e7e51f76, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

first-principles 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 8d 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.

skills/first-principles/SKILL.md · 364 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 364 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

第一性原理思维

前置协议

环境检测

# 检测当前项目信息
PROJECT_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")
BRANCH=$(git branch --show-current 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")
COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")

echo "PROJECT: $PROJECT_ROOT"
echo "BRANCH: $BRANCH"
echo "COMMIT: $COMMIT"

前置技能检查

benefits-from 检查(推荐但非必须):

# 检查 goal-oriented 工件
GOAL_ARTIFACT="memory/artifacts/goal-oriented/latest.json"

if [ -f "$GOAL_ARTIFACT" ]; then
  echo "FOUND: goal-oriented artifact"
  # 提取目标信息(使用 Read 工具读取)
  # 在分析中参考目标上下文
else
  echo "INFO: No goal-oriented artifact found"
  echo "Consider running /goal-oriented first for better context"
fi

工件目录初始化

# 确保工件目录存在
mkdir -p memory/artifacts/first-principles

用户意图确认

根据用户消息判断:

检查点

  • 用户面临的问题是否需要创新方案
  • 是否需要打破既有假设和惯例
  • 问题复杂度是否适合第一性原理分析

意图分类

  1. 创新问题:需要从本质重新构建解决方案
  2. 性能优化:找到瓶颈的根本原因
  3. 技术选型:从根本上分析需求
  4. 架构设计:从本质出发设计系统

Overview

第一性原理是一种从最基础、最根本的真理或事实出发,重新构建问题解决方案的思维方式。它要求抛开现有假设、惯例或类比,直接追问"这件事的本质是什么?""最基本的构成要素是什么?",然后基于这些基础元素推导出新的可能性。

核心区别:

  • 类比思维: 基于现有方案改进("别人怎么做,我也能怎么做")
  • 第一性原理: 从本质重新构建("根本不需要这样做")

典型例子: 埃隆·马斯克思考火箭制造成本时,不是接受市场价,而是从原材料成本出发,得出自己制造更便宜的结论。

When to Use

适用场景:

  • 复杂问题需要创新方案
  • 常规方法失效,需要突破
  • 需要打破既有假设和惯例
  • 成本/效率需要根本性突破
  • 技术选型、架构设计等关键决策
  • 用户明确要求"从本质思考"

不适用场景:

  • 简单的、已解决的问题
  • 标准化的、成熟的做法
  • 时间紧急,需要快速复用现有方案

The Process

digraph first_principles {
    rankdir=TB;

    "识别问题" [shape=box, style=filled, fillcolor="#e0e0e0"];
    "拆解到基础元素" [shape=box, style=filled, fillcolor="#c8e6c9"];
    "质疑假设" [shape=box, style=filled, fillcolor="#fff9c4"];
    "重建方案" [shape=box, style=filled, fillcolor="#bbdefb"];
    "验证可行性" [shape=box, style=filled, fillcolor="#f8bbd0"];
    "保存工件" [shape=box, style=filled, fillcolor="#81c784"];

    "识别问题" -> "拆解到基础元素";
    "拆解到基础元素" -> "质疑假设";
    "质疑假设" -> "重建方案";
    "重建方案" -> "验证可行性";
    "验证可行性" -> "识别问题" [label="不可行", style=dashed];
    "验证可行性" -> "保存工件" [label="可行"];
}

Read the full file on GitHub · 364 lines

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. 8d ago First seen · 364 lines · 58 tokens per session scan A 13f8e7e51f76

Subscribe to this mod's changes

first-principles is a skill published in the GitHub repository konglong87/methodology-skills (5 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 58 tokens to every session and 3,137 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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