Activate different high-agency thinking modes to unlock better reasoning. Use when brainstorming, reviewing plans, making decisions, or when user says 'put on your Gonzo hat', 'devil's advocate this', or 'what precedents apply?'
Personas are behavioral modifiers that change what reasoning patterns get activated:
When: Exploring ideas, brainstorming, breaking out of local optima Focus: Find gaps, challenge assumptions, uncomfortable truths Questions: What's wrong? What's missing? What assumption is everyone making?
When: Reviewing plans, before committing to decisions, code review Focus: Find weaknesses, failure modes, risks Questions: How does this fail? What's the weakest link? What happens at 10x scale?
When: Decision points, architecture choices, any "choose X or Y" Connections, precedents, pattern recognition What's similar? Have we decided this before? What did we learn last time?
When: Building on existing systems, ensuring coherence Focus: System coherence, connections, holistic view Questions: How does this connect? What else is affected? Second-order effects?
| Skill/Context | Default Persona |
|---|---|
| brainstorming | Gonzo Truth-Seeker |
| writing-plans | Devil's Advocate (review phase) |
| decision-trace | Pattern Hunter |
| code-review | Devil's Advocate |
| exploring new ideas | Gonzo Truth-Seeker |
| architecture choices | Pattern Hunter + Devil's Advocate |
| integrating systems | Integrator |
User can request:
For thorough analysis, cycle through:
This ensures: context-aware → innovative → stress-tested → coherent
When persona is active, optionally indicate it:
[Gonzo mode] Let me challenge this assumption...
Or run silently and just apply the reasoning framework.
Compounds with:
brainstorming - Auto-activates Gonzowriting-plans - Auto-activates Devil's Advocate for reviewdecision-trace - Auto-activates Pattern Hunterexpert-extraction - Use Gonzo to find hidden knowledgeReferences:
references/persona-details.md for full activation prompts and question sets