Sequential Thinking

Sequential Thinking

A tool for dynamic, reflective problem-solving through a chain of numbered thoughts. Full parity with the Sequential Thinking MCP server — same parameters, same state management, same behavioral contract.

How to Use This Skill

When this skill is activated, use scripts/think.ts as your primary reasoning mechanism. Do not reason in prose — reason through the script. Every step of your analysis should be a thought submitted via the script, making your reasoning chain explicit and trackable.

Workflow

1. Reset state at the start of every new thinking session
2. Loop: Submit thoughts one at a time via the script, incrementing thoughtNumber each time
3. Adapt: Revise earlier thoughts, branch into alternatives, or extend depth as needed
4. Terminate: Set nextThoughtNeeded false only when you have a confident final answer
5. Respond: After the final thought, provide the answer to the user

Each thought should be a single Bash tool call. Think in the thought, not outside it.

Script Location

scripts/think.ts

Run via bun from the skill's base directory.

Commands

Reset (required before every new session)

bun scripts/think.ts --reset

Submit a Thought

Required flags: --thought, --thoughtNumber, --totalThoughts, --nextThoughtNeeded

bun scripts/think.ts \
  --thought "Your analysis for this step" \
  --thoughtNumber 1 \
  --totalThoughts 5 \
  --nextThoughtNeeded true

Submit a Revision

Revises a previous thought. The original stays in history; the revision is appended as a new entry. Requires --isRevision and --revisesThought.

bun scripts/think.ts \
  --thought "Corrected analysis" \
  --thoughtNumber 3 \
  --totalThoughts 5 \
  --nextThoughtNeeded true \
  --isRevision --revisesThought 1

Submit a Branch

Explores an alternative path from a prior thought. Requires both --branchFromThought and --branchId.

bun scripts/think.ts \
  --thought "Alternative approach" \
  --thoughtNumber 4 \
  --totalThoughts 7 \
  --nextThoughtNeeded true \
  --branchFromThought 2 --branchId alt-approach

Extend Depth

Signal that more thoughts are needed beyond the original estimate.

bun scripts/think.ts \
  --thought "Scope is larger than expected" \
  --thoughtNumber 6 \
  --totalThoughts 8 \
  --nextThoughtNeeded true \
  --needsMoreThoughts

Inspect Full State

bun scripts/think.ts --status

Returns JSON with fullHistory and branchDetails.

Output Format

Each thought invocation prints the thought to stderr and a compact status line to stdout:

💭 Thought 3/7
The analysis shows that...
[3/7] history=3 next=true

Revision and branch thoughts use 🔄 Revision and 🌿 Branch headers respectively.

Parameters (Full MCP Parity)

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | |---|---|---|---| | --thought | string | yes | The content of this thinking step | | --thoughtNumber | int >= 1 | yes | Current thought number in the sequence | | --totalThoughts | int >= 1 | yes | Estimated total thoughts needed (adjustable) | | --nextThoughtNeeded | bool | yes | true to continue, false to terminate | | --isRevision | flag | no | Marks this thought as revising a previous one | | --revisesThought | int >= 1 | no | Which thought number is being revised (required with --isRevision) | | --branchFromThought | int >= 1 | no | Create a branch starting from this thought number | | --branchId | string | no | Label for the branch (required with --branchFromThought) | | --needsMoreThoughts | flag | no | Signal that totalThoughts should be expanded |

Behavioral Rules

These match the MCP server's tool description exactly:

1. Start with an initial estimate of totalThoughts, but adjust freely as understanding deepens
2. Auto-adjust: If thoughtNumber exceeds totalThoughts, the script raises totalThoughts to match
3. Revise previous thoughts when you realize an earlier step was wrong or incomplete — set --isRevision and --revisesThought N. The original stays in history; the revision is appended
4. Branch to explore alternative reasoning paths — set both --branchFromThought N and --branchId label. This does not abandon the main line
5. Extend beyond the initial estimate at any time with --needsMoreThoughts and an increased --totalThoughts
6. Express uncertainty — not every thought needs confidence. Questioning and exploring is encouraged
7. Filter noise — ignore information irrelevant to the current step
8. Generate hypotheses when you have enough evidence, then verify them against prior thoughts in the chain
9. Iterate hypothesis-verification cycles until satisfied with the answer
10. Terminate only when you have a satisfactory answer — set --nextThoughtNeeded false
11. Non-linear paths are first-class — branching, backtracking, and revision are features, not failures

State Management

• State is persisted to scripts/.think_state.json between invocations
• thoughtHistory[] is append-only — thoughts are never deleted
• branches{} maps branch IDs to their thought arrays
• --reset clears all state for a fresh session
• --status dumps the full state as JSON for inspection

Example Session

See [references/example-session.md](references/example-session.md) for a complete worked example demonstrating normal thoughts, revisions, branches, and dynamic depth adjustment.

Source & license

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

• Author: thedotmack
• Source: thedotmack/sequential-thinking-skill
• License: MIT

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