cynefin-framework

cynefin-framework is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from tupe12334/instinct. It costs 26 tokens per session (2,809 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A framework for choosing how to respond based on the situation: Clear, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, or Confused. It distinguishes problems with obvious causes from those that require experiments or immediate action.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to classify project or operational problems and choose whether to follow established practice, seek expert analysis, experiment, or act quickly to create order.
Why use it?
It helps avoid applying a fixed decision method to a situation that needs a different approach.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the instinct plugin — 54 skills, 1 hook shipped together

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/tupe12334/instinct/cynefin-framework
Any agent
npx skills add tupe12334/instinct --skill cynefin-framework
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tupe12334/instinct

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install instinct, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 54 skills, 1 hook.

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 cynefin-framework

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tupe12334/instinct/cynefin-framework.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/tupe12334/instinct/cynefin-framework)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tupe12334/instinct/cynefin-framework"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tupe12334/instinct/cynefin-framework.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 26 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,809 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00026 $0.02809
Opus 5 $0.00013 $0.01404
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00562
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00281

Measured 4d ago against content hash 7c2a4d64c563, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

cynefin-framework 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 4d 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/cynefin-framework/SKILL.md · 179 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 179 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Cynefin Framework

Overview

Cynefin (pronounced "ku-NEV-in") is a sense-making framework developed by Dave Snowden that helps you identify which type of context you are operating in before choosing how to respond. The core insight is that different domains require fundamentally different decision-making approaches — a method that works brilliantly in one domain can be catastrophically wrong in another.

            COMPLICATED          │          COMPLEX
  Cause & effect need analysis   │  Cause & effect only visible
  Expert judgment required       │  in retrospect; experiment first
  Sense → Analyze → Respond      │  Probe → Sense → Respond
                                 │
─────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────
                                 │
            CLEAR                │          CHAOTIC
  Cause & effect are obvious     │  No discernible cause & effect
  Best practice applies          │  Act first to establish order
  Sense → Categorize → Respond   │  Act → Sense → Respond
                                 │
                        ┌────────┴────────┐
                        │    CONFUSED     │
                        │  (you don't     │
                        │  know which     │
                        │  domain you're  │
                        │  in yet)        │
                        └─────────────────┘

The most dangerous move is applying the wrong domain's logic — treating a complex problem with best-practice checklists, or stalling on analysis during a crisis that demands immediate action.

Domain Definitions

Clear (formerly "Obvious")

Cause and effect are self-evident to any reasonable person. The right answer is known; it is a matter of following established process. Examples: processing a standard expense report, resetting a password, filing a tax return.

  • Action: Sense → Categorize → Respond
  • Use: best practice, standard operating procedures, automation

Complicated

Cause and effect exist but require expertise to see. Multiple valid approaches exist; an expert can determine which is best through analysis. Examples: designing a software architecture, performing surgery, diagnosing a mechanical failure.

  • Action: Sense → Analyze → Respond
  • Use: expert judgment, structured analysis, good practice (not one single best practice)

Read the full file on GitHub · 179 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. 4d ago First seen · 179 lines · 26 tokens per session scan A 7c2a4d64c563

Subscribe to this mod's changes

cynefin-framework is a skill published in the GitHub repository tupe12334/instinct (1 stars, last pushed 18d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 26 tokens to every session and 2,809 once invoked, about $0.0001 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.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

thinking-theory-of-constraints

When throughput or latency is pipeline-limited, identify the single binding constraint and exploit, subordinate, elevate, then recheck—ignore non-constraints.

tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills · 37 tokens

thinking-lindy-effect

Use when longevity of a non-perishable option matters. Treat survival duration as a remaining-life prior, then check domain drift before favoring the proven.

tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills · 35 tokens

thinking-kepner-tregoe

Use when a selective defect needs IS/IS-NOT difference analysis or a consequential option choice needs must/want weighting and adverse-consequence comparison.

tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills · 37 tokens

alive:demo

Generate a believable, lived-in ALIVE world from a free-text persona description (custom path) or a deterministic sandbox preset. Routes the create/list/activate/deactivate/delete/status surface and orchestrates the 5-stage subagent generation pipeline.

alivecontext/alive · 52 tokens

alive:session-history

Revive sessions (quick or heavy), browse, and search — 'what happened recently?', 'find the session where we discussed X', 'revive yesterday's session'. For single-session recall and multi-session browsing. If the human needs to merge multiple sessions into one working context or detect conflicts between parallel…

alivecontext/alive · 76 tokens

alive:world

The human doesn't know what to work on, or wants to see everything at once. They need the big picture — what's active, what's stale, what needs attention. Renders a live world view grouped by ALIVE domain, then routes to open, tidy, find, history, or map.

alivecontext/alive · 63 tokens