skills/cw-thesis/SKILL.md

---
name: cw-thesis
description: Generate 3 thesis options tailored to your content. Invoke with /cw-thesis or /cw-thesis [topic/context].
---

# Thesis

## Purpose

Generate 3 thesis options that crystallize the core insight of the piece.

Read `../../references/context-contract.md` and resolve available audience context, including optional `AUDIENCE.md` or a named shared guide. The explicit assignment audience takes precedence; missing audience context does not block the task.

## Invocation

- `/cw-thesis [context]` — Generate theses for the specified topic/piece
- `/cw-thesis` — System asks "What's the piece about?" then generates options

## What Makes a Good Thesis

A thesis should achieve several of these qualities:

### Core Functions
- **Reframes the familiar** — Shows us something we thought we knew from a fresh angle
- **Bridges domains** — Connects ideas that don't usually talk to each other
- **Names the unnamed** — Articulates something we've felt but couldn't express
- **Reveals hidden physics** — Exposes the actual forces driving a situation
- **Flips the script** — Challenges conventional wisdom without being contrarian for sport

### Forms It Might Take
- A coined term that actually helps us think (not jargon for jargon's sake)
- A paradox that reveals deeper truth
- A question that reframes the entire conversation
- Pattern recognition across unexpected domains
- A "yes, and..." that builds on existing ideas
- A synthesis that creates something genuinely new
- A distinction that clarifies muddy thinking
- A prediction grounded in observable shifts

### Quality Checks
- Could someone build on this idea?
- Does it help readers see their own experience differently?
- Is it memorable without being gimmicky?
- Does it feel discovered rather than constructed?
- Would it spark a good dinner conversation?

## How to Generate

1. **Analyze the content** — What's the core insight? What's the writer actually saying?

2. **Select 3 approaches** that fit. Consider:
   - What's the strongest version of this argument?
   - What framing would make this stickiest?
   - What would make a reader stop and think?

3. **Generate one thesis per approach** — Each should be 1-2 sentences that crystallize the insight.

4. **Present all three** with a brief note on the approach.

## Output Format

```
## Thesis Options

### Option 1: [Brief description of approach]
[1-2 sentence thesis]

### Option 2: [Brief description of approach]
[1-2 sentence thesis]

### Option 3: [Brief description of approach]
[1-2 sentence thesis]

---

Which feels closest? Or want me to try a different angle?
```

## Principles

- **Arguable** — Someone could disagree; it takes a position
- **Specific** — Not so broad it could apply to anything
- **Sharp** — Cuts through; not mushy or hedged
- **Generative** — Opens up thinking rather than closing it down

## Lessons

[Skill-specific lessons will be added here as they're captured]