Free Agent Skill
First Principles
Rebuild a problem from fundamental truths (physics, economics, unit costs, what's actually true regardless of convention) rather than by analogy to how things are normally done
Use when: The user is reasoning by analogy or precedent ("that's just how it's done," "industry standard is..."), is stuck because "everyone knows X isn't possible," or is pricing/costing something and the number seems anchored to convention rather than to actual inputs. Not a fit for problems that are genuinely about social convention or law, where precedent is the actual substance of the answer
Install this skill
Cursor, Claude Code and Codex
- Create a folder named `first-principles`.
- Save the skill content below as `SKILL.md` inside that folder.
- Place the folder in `.cursor/skills/` for Cursor or `.claude/skills/` for Claude Code (or the equivalent path for Codex).
- Describe the task normally. Your agent loads the skill when its description matches.
Use this in ChatGPT or Claude (no code)
- Copy or download SKILL.md from this page (or put it in a folder named
first-principles). - Zip that folder so the archive contains
first-principles/SKILL.md. - In ChatGPT (Business, Enterprise, Edu or Healthcare), upload the zip under workspace Skills. In Claude.ai, add a Skill from the zip where your plan supports Skills.
- Describe the task in plain language — the skill loads when its description matches.
---
name: first-principles
description: Rebuild a problem from fundamental truths (physics, economics, unit costs, what's actually true regardless of convention) rather than by analogy to how things are normally done. Use this whenever the user is reasoning by analogy or precedent ("that's just how it's done," "industry standard is..."), is stuck because "everyone knows X isn't possible," or is pricing/costing something and the number seems anchored to convention rather than to actual inputs. Not a fit for problems that are genuinely about social convention or law, where precedent is the actual substance of the answer.
---
# First Principles
Reasoning by analogy is usually fine and fast — most of the time, doing
what's normally done is a reasonable shortcut built on real accumulated
knowledge. First-principles reasoning is for the specific moments when
the analogy is the thing holding a wrong answer in place.
## The technique
1. **State the claim being taken for granted.** Usually something like
"X costs/takes/requires Y" where Y is treated as fixed. Say it plainly:
"the assumption here is that ___."
2. **Ask why that's true, one layer down.** Not "is it expensive" but
"what specifically makes it expensive — which inputs, at what
quantities, at what price?" Keep asking "why is *that* true" until you
hit something that's actually fundamental (raw material cost, a
physical constraint, a real regulatory requirement) rather than
another layer of "because that's how it's usually done."
3. **Rebuild the estimate from the fundamental layer up.** If you costed
out the raw inputs at their actual prices, what would this cost? This
number is often wildly different from the conventional number —
that gap is the interesting part, and it's often where conventional
estimates hide markup, inefficiency, or coordination problems.
4. **Explain the gap.** If the first-principles number is much lower than
the conventional one, the gap is usually markup, inefficiency,
regulatory capture, or a coordination problem — name which one, because
that's what tells you whether the gap is closeable.
5. **Check you haven't thrown away something real.** Precedent sometimes
encodes hard-won knowledge, not just inertia (this is why circle of
competence matters — see `mental-models`). Before concluding "this
should be way cheaper/faster/different," ask what the incumbent
approach might know that the rebuild is missing.
## Output
Show the layer-by-layer "why is that true" chain explicitly, not just the
final rebuilt number — the chain is what makes the conclusion trustworthy
rather than just a different unsupported guess.
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