AI Agent Workflow Collection

Activate when: user says 'our growth is stalling and we don't know why,' 'product and marketing are arguing about whose fault it is,' 'where is our funnel breaking,' 'pirate metrics,' or 'acquisition vs activation vs retention.' Also activate for: designing end-to-end metrics for a new product, building a shared instrumentation framework across teams.

Activate when: user says 'what's the most likely explanation,' 'why did this happen,' 'we think it's X but not sure,' 'we only have one theory,' 'the team has converged on an answer without checking alternatives,' or when diagnosing a bug/outage/symptom/anomaly under uncertainty.

Activate when: signups don't turn into active/paying users; 'people sign up but don't stick', designing onboarding, improving activation; aha moment, time-to-value. Do NOT activate when: the problem is acquisition (no signups) or long-term retention of already-activated users (different lever).

Activate when: user says 'what's a fair price / starting number / ballpark'; counterparty just opened with a number; user is about to negotiate salary, valuation, or deal terms; user is making a forecast and a number has already been floated; user asks about 'first offer', 'framing effect', or 'being anchored'.

Activate when: user asks whether their system/business/portfolio would survive a crisis; user says 'this has been fine for years but I'm nervous'; user wants to stress-test a plan against worst-case scenarios; user mentions Taleb, barbell strategy, via negativa, or skin in the game; user is deciding how to allocate across risky vs. safe options under high uncertainty.

Activate when: customers pay late and cash is tight; 'clients don't pay on time', collections, invoicing terms, reducing days-sales-outstanding; overdue receivables. Do NOT activate when: paid instantly at point of sale (no receivables).

Diagnoses the buyer/seller deadlock in any trade of information — the buyer cannot value what they cannot see, but once they see it they have it for free — and selects the disclosure mechanism (patent, NDA, staged disclosure, trusted intermediary + escrow, reputation, or proxy demonstration) that lets the buyer estimate value WITHOUT the seller losing appropriability.

Activate when: someone says 'should we trust the expert on this?', 'they're a professor/CEO/MD so they must be right', 'I don't want to push back on them', 'we deferred to the board and it blew up', or is evaluating a charismatic founder, assessing due diligence on a high-credential deal, or building a team where senior voices dominate.

Activate when: user says 'we keep hearing about X so it must be common', 'that just happened so it's risky', 'the news is full of stories about this', 'I've seen this a lot lately so it's probable', or is making a risk/frequency estimate driven by memorable examples rather than data. Do NOT activate when: the available evidence is genuinely representative of the reference class; the decision warrants heavy precautionary weight on rare but catastrophic/irreversible risks.

Activate when: user says 'walk-away point', 'reservation price', 'should I take this deal', 'what's my leverage', 'they won't budge', or any salary/term-sheet/vendor/M&A negotiation where stakes are non-trivial. Do NOT activate when: the situation is a purely emotional relationship dispute with no transactional dimension; cultural context makes explicit BATNA discussion taboo.

Activate when: user says 'this can't happen,' 'never happened in N years,' 'our models say it's near-zero'; user is stress-testing a strategy or portfolio against extreme scenarios; someone mentions fat tails, Taleb, narrative fallacy, or turkey problem; a past catastrophic event is being analyzed and it 'seemed obvious in hindsight.

Activate when: a founder is deciding whether to raise venture money or self-fund; 'should we raise?', weighing dilution vs speed, choosing a funding path; VC fit vs bootstrap/SMB. Do NOT activate when: the decision is already made and the task is executing a specific raise (use fundraising materials instead).

Activate when: a founder is guessing at marketing channels or pouring effort into one that isn't working; 'how do we get customers', 'which channel should we use', growth is stalled on distribution. Do NOT activate when: a channel is already proven and the task is to optimize/scale it, not to find one.

Activate when: a profitable-on-paper business is short on cash; 'we're profitable but always broke', managing working capital, inventory or receivables tying up cash; DSO/DIO/DPO. Do NOT activate when: a pure digital business with instant payment and no inventory/receivables (cycle ~0).

Activate when: 'we keep debating whether to pivot or stay the course', 'I don't know what we should never change', 'is this signal or noise?', 'the market shifted — what do we hold onto?', 'we're paralyzed between adapting and staying true to who we are'.

Activate when: user says 'I understand it but can't apply it,' 'how do I stop just copying other people's work,' 'I can adapt frameworks but can't create new ones,' 'why does my innovation always look like a remix,' or when someone's output is sophisticated adaptation that cannot generate genuinely novel solutions.

Activate when: user says 'I want to improve my thinking,' 'why does my decision-making keep failing,' 'how do I optimize my cognitive performance,' 'what's the full picture of how the mind works,' or is about to apply a single cognitive intervention without understanding which domain is the bottleneck.

Activate when: user says "foot in the door," "I already committed so I have to follow through," "how do I design onboarding / a sales sequence / a commitment ladder," "Cialdini," "would I do this fresh," or is evaluating whether past small steps are pulling them into a bigger decision. Do NOT activate when: the situation is genuinely single-shot with no prior commitment history; commitment framing would be used to pressure someone who already has limited choice.

Activate when: user says 'should I do this myself or delegate,' 'I'm the best at X so I should do it,' 'should we outsource or build in-house,' 'how should we divide work on the team,' 'is it worth hiring someone for this.' Do NOT activate when: the situation is genuinely single-task with no trade-off; the user is asking about competitive strategy between companies (use Porter's Five Forces instead).

Activate when: user asks about starting early vs. later for savings/investing, wonders if small consistent gains add up, wants to know how long to double money, is evaluating long-term wealth or skill-building decisions, mentions 'Rule of 72' or 'exponential growth.' Do NOT activate when: the time horizon is short (under 3 years) and compounding is negligible; the underlying process is genuinely linear with no reinvestment or accumulation.

Activate when: user says 'we keep finding evidence that supports our view,' 'the team is all aligned on this,' 'I've done the research and it checks out,' or a decision moves forward with only supporting evidence cited. Do NOT activate when: context is explicit advocacy (legal brief, pitch deck) where one-sided argument is the design; or stakes are too low to justify structured disconfirmation.

Activate when: a founder/SMB wants durable organic acquisition; 'how do we do SEO/content', 'we blog but get no traffic', building a content engine; topic clusters, search intent. Do NOT activate when: the need is immediate paid response this week (use paid channels) or the audience doesn't search for the problem.

Activate when: 'we need a breakthrough idea', 'everything in our industry looks the same', 'we've exhausted all options in our field', 'how do we innovate in a way no competitor has tried', 'need to think completely outside the box'. Do NOT activate when: home domain has a known solution needing better execution; user wants to brainstorm more options within their existing field.

Activate when: user says 'I used to love this but don't anymore', 'I feel like I've stopped learning', 'I go through the motions but nothing excites me', 'how do I stay curious as I get older', or a domain expert's knowledge has visibly stagnated despite continued effort.