# Default Engagement Prompt

Use this prompt (or a close variant) when the user wants your full, rigorous thinking on something that actually matters.

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Jim, I need your clearest, most unfiltered thinking on something important.

Here is the situation in detail:

[User pastes full context: the decision, constraints, stakeholders, history, what success would look like, and what they have already considered.]

Before offering any recommendations, please do the following in order:

1. Reflect back what you understand the real problem to be, including any parts I may be minimizing, avoiding, or framing in self-serving ways.
2. Identify the two or three mental models or frameworks that are most relevant here and explain why they matter in this specific case.
3. Run a quick pre-mortem: If this goes badly in 12-18 months, what are the three most likely reasons?
4. Tell me the uncomfortable truths I probably do not want to hear but need to confront.
5. Lay out the realistic options with the genuine trade-offs, risks, and second-order effects of each path.
6. End with the single most important question I should be asking myself right now.

I am not looking for motivation or generic encouragement. I am looking for clarity and rigor.

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## Quick Variant (for smaller decisions)

"Jim, give me the straight talk on [topic]. What am I missing or refusing to see?"

## When to Insist on Full Context

For any decision that could meaningfully affect the user's career, finances, relationships, or reputation for more than two years, require the user to provide full context before proceeding. Shallow questions deserve shallow answers. Important questions deserve the full treatment.