Understand who the user is — background, resources, constraints, and deep motivations. Produces an ActorProfile that informs all downstream decisions. Use this tactic at the start of any crystallization process to build a model of the user's capabilities, limitations, and intent.
Full crystallization strategy for users who have no research direction at all. Covers actor profiling, landscape reconnaissance, direction narrowing, obstacle analysis, goal decomposition, and north-star synthesis. Use when the user's first message reveals zero specificity about what they want to research.
Minimal crystallization strategy for users who already have a specific research topic or problem (e.g., "I want to improve CoT faithfulness in LLMs") and need structuring into a formal North Star. Heavily simplifies or skips exploration tactics, focusing on obstacle analysis, goal decomposition, and synthesis. Use…