$ cat ~/map/pi-think-different.md

pi-think-different

Nine switchable thinking paradigms — six hats, thought trees, debate — as prompt contracts or harness-driven multi-pass workflows.

extensions✓ Oct 16

pi install npm:pi-think-different — Pi loads src/index.ts directly, no build step, no dependencies beyond Pi; from a checkout, pi install ./pi-think-different loads it from the folder

## TL;DR

A pi extension with nine switchable thinking paradigms — six hats, Tree of Thoughts, debate, first principles — each usable as a session-long prompt contract or a harness-driven multi-pass workflow, driven by the /think command and a think tool.

## Key points

• $Nine paradigms with fixed shapes: cot, tot, got, critique, hypothesis, hats, debate, first-principles, and angles, each documented with the problem shape it fits and its run-mode call count (two to six).
• $The /think command drives everything: pin a paradigm for the session, apply one to a single turn with /think once, name the task in the same command, or let /think auto score each prompt and pick; /think random rotates paradigms, /think deep raises intensity, /think off returns to default Pi reasoning.
• $Three intensities (light, standard, deep) and two placements: the structure can render in the visible answer, or stay in the thinking block with only the conclusion surfacing.
• $Session language en or zh changes the interface — picker, catalogue, help, status line, and notifications — and structural labels render as bold text in that language; marker tokens the model writes stay hidden, and the six-hat emoji are pinned by codepoint so look-alike emoji cannot take the black hat's place.
• $A think tool with two modes: scaffold for structured reasoning in the current turn, run for the multi-pass workflow, where the harness parses reported scores, prunes weak branches itself, and tells the next step what it may build on.
• $Defaults layer through three JSON files (the extension's own defaults, a per-user file, a per-project override), with /think in the session winning over all of them; headless sessions can start with a paradigm via pi --mode json --think tot -p.

## FAQ

## References

• README ↗

Last updated: Oct 16, 2026