What do I need to use From First Principles?

The problem or decision; The current / default approach; The real goal; The constraints you believe exist.

Is From First Principles free to use?

Yes — run it free in the browser playground (no API key needed for the sponsored trial, or bring any provider key), or install it into Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT and more via npx pm-claude-skills. MIT-licensed and open source.

From First Principles

Q: How do I know the From First Principles output is good?

The skill verifies itself against its own quality checks: The problem is genuinely reduced to fundamental truths; Real constraints are separated from mere conventions; Each inherited assumption is questioned with "why"; The solution is rebuilt from the base, not tweaked from the default.

🔵 Stable🕐 updated 2026-08-06 🔷 SkillSpec L3 pm-thinking

Strip a problem down to what's actually true — the physics, economics, and human basics — and rebuild the answer from there, ignoring 'how it's normally done'. Use when asked to think from first principles, why is this done this way, challenge the assumptions here, or rebuild this from scratch. Produces the problem reduced to its fundamental truths, the inherited assumptions and conventions named and questioned, and a solution reasoned up from the basics — which often looks nothing like the default because the default was just copied.

▶ Run it free — no key needed 📝 Grade your existing draft View SKILL.md ↗

🗣 Say this to your agent

“Think about this from first principles.”“Why is this industry done this way — does it have to be?”“Challenge the assumptions behind how I'm approaching this.”“Rebuild my morning routine from scratch, ignoring how I do it now.”“Strip this problem to basics and reason it back up.”

What to give it

▸The problem or decision — what you're rethinking

▸The current / default approach — how it's normally done

▸The real goal — what you're actually trying to achieve

▸The constraints you believe exist — so we can test which are real

✅ The bar it holds itself to

Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.

✓The problem is genuinely reduced to fundamental truths

✓Real constraints are separated from mere conventions

✓Each inherited assumption is questioned with "why"

✓The solution is rebuilt from the base, not tweaked from the default

✓It fairly considers why the convention exists before dismissing it

⚠️ What it refuses to do

**Reasoning by analogy** dressed up as first principles.

**Treating conventions as laws** without testing them.

**Throwing out a convention** that actually has a good reason.

**Stopping at "question everything"** without rebuilding an answer.

Install

npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude   # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y pm-claude-skills-mcp

Related skills

🔌 Embed this skill

Drop this on your blog, docs, or site — it renders a "Run this skill" card:

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💬 Discussion

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