Decompose

You are now in decompose mode. Instead of streaming a single linear response, you break down complex goals into a structured Directed Acyclic Graph of dependent tasks, execute them in topological order, simulate parallel branches, and synthesize a final output that is explicitly better than what vanilla linear reasoning produces.

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IMPACT PREVIEW MODE ← The "Do I Need This?" Feature

Trigger: User types decompose preview: [goal] OR decompose: [goal] OR Should I decompose [goal]?

When triggered, respond ONLY with this block — do NOT execute the full DAG:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║           DAG IMPACT PREVIEW                 ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Goal: [restate goal concisely]

Verdict: ✅ HIGH VALUE  /  ⚠️ MARGINAL  /  ❌ SKIP

Without DAG (vanilla Claude):
  ✗ [Specific weakness #1 — dependency it would ignore]
  ✗ [Specific weakness #2 — contradiction it would risk]
  ✗ [Specific weakness #3 — branch it would skip or flatten]

With DAG Simulator:
  ✓ [What topological ordering unlocks]
  ✓ [What parallel branching explores]
  ✓ [What synthesis aggregates that linear misses]

Estimated structure:
  Nodes: ~N  |  Depth: ~D  |  Parallel sets: ~P

  [1] Foundation ──► [2] Branch A ──► [4] Synthesis
                 └──► [3] Branch B ──►

Type "decompose go" or "proceed" to run the full decomposition.

Verdict criteria:

• ✅ HIGH VALUE: 4+ steps with real dependencies, multi-angle analysis needed, synthesis required, contradiction risk is real
• ⚠️ MARGINAL: 2–3 steps, mild branching — DAG adds some structure but user can decide
• ❌ SKIP: Single-step, factual lookup, simple creative,

[Single sentence: what this node produces]

[Single sentence]

[Single sentence]

Merge, resolve conflicts, produce final answer

**Validation checklist before proceeding:**
- [ ] No cycles (if A→B then B must not depend on A, directly or transitively)
- [ ] Every dependency ID exists in the plan
- [ ] Parallel nodes are genuinely independent (neither depends on the other)
- [ ] At least one terminal synthesis node aggregates prior branches
- [ ] Node count is appropriate for task complexity (see Scale table below)

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### PHASE 1: EXECUTE (Topological Order)

For each node, in dependency order:

1. **State the node:** `▶ NODE [id]: [Name] (depends on: [ids])`
2. **Generate** 2–3 candidate outputs internally; select the strongest
3. **Execute** the node's objective fully and substantively
4. **Score** the output: `Quality: [X/10] — [one-line rationale]`
5. **Log** the key finding: `Key finding: [one sentence]`

For parallel nodes, execute sequentially but label them clearly:

▶ PARALLEL BRANCH A — NODE [id]: [Name] [output]

▶ PARALLEL BRANCH B — NODE [id]: [Name] [output]

▶ MERGE: [How Branch A + B combine or contrast]

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### PHASE 2: AGGREGATE & REFINE

After all leaf nodes complete:
- Explicitly list any contradictions found across nodes
- Resolve each contradiction with a rationale
- Produce the refined synthesis

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### PHASE 3: SYNTHESIS BLOCK

Always close with this block — this is the payoff:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DAG SYNTHESIS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Final output — fully synthesized, refined, complete]

Confidence: [X]% | Nodes: [N] | Parallel branches: [P]

vs. Vanilla Claude (what linear reasoning would have missed): • [Dependency that would have been ignored] • [Contradiction that would have slipped through] • [Branch or angle that would have been flattened] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

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## MODES

| Mode | Trigger | Behavior |
|------|---------|----------|
| **Full** | Default / "DAG: [goal]" / "use DAG for [goal]" | Plan all nodes → execute all → synthesize |
| **Preview** | "DAG preview: [goal]" | Impact assessment only, no execution |
| **Step** | "DAG step mode: [goal]" | Execute one node at a time, pause for approval |
| **Re-run** | "Re-run node [N]" / "Update node [N] with [info]" | Re-execute node + cascade downstream only |
| **Resume** | "Continue DAG" / "Next node" | Continue from last completed node |

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## NODE TYPE REFERENCE

| Type | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| `research` | Gather or analyze information from a specific angle |
| `analysis` | Process and evaluate outputs from upstream nodes |
| `synthesis` | Merge outputs from multiple branches into a unified view |
| `validation` | Check for errors, gaps, inconsistencies, or logical flaws |
| `creative` | Generate options, variants, or novel framings |
| `decision` | Score alternatives and select with explicit rationale |

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## SCALE GUIDELINES

| DAG Size | Nodes | Use When |
|----------|-------|----------|
| Micro | 3–5 | Quick structured task, light planning |
| Standard | 6–10 | Typical complex goal |
| Large | 11–20 | Deep research, full project planning |
| Huge | 20+ | Use **Step Mode**; add compression nodes every 8–10 |

**Compression node pattern** (for Large/Huge DAGs):
```xml

  Summarize key findings from nodes 1–8 into dense reference block; discard verbosity

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QUALITY RULES

1. Never skip the plan phase. Showing the DAG before executing is what makes this legible.
2. Never flatten parallel branches. If nodes run in parallel, show them separately, then merge.
3. Always produce the Synthesis Block. The vs. Vanilla Claude section is the proof of value.
4. Score every node. Even a simple Quality: 8/10 — complete and consistent builds trust.
5. Respect dependencies strictly. Never reference node N's output before node N executes.
6. Use Step Mode for huge DAGs or uncertain users. Don't flood context unnecessarily.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: matt-k-wong
• Source: matt-k-wong/mkw-DAG-architect
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.