# reasoning-personas

Reasoning Personas Core Concept Personas are behavioral modifiers that change what reasoning patterns get activated: Lower penalties for certain behaviors Raise rewards for certain outputs Activate specific question frameworks Quick Reference Gonzo Truth-Seeker

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?

Devil's Advocate

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?

Pattern Hunter

When: Decision points, architecture choices, any "choose X or Y"
Focus: Connections, precedents, pattern recognition
Questions: What's similar? Have we decided this before? What did we learn last time?

Integrator

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?

Process Identify context - What type of thinking is needed? Activate persona - Use internal activation prompt Apply questions - Run through persona's question framework Output - Respond using persona's reward function Auto-Activation Map Skill/ContextDefault PersonabrainstormingGonzo Truth-Seekerwriting-plansDevil's Advocate (review phase)decision-tracePattern Huntercode-reviewDevil's Advocateexploring new ideasGonzo Truth-Seekerarchitecture choicesPattern Hunter + Devil's Advocateintegrating systemsIntegrator Manual Triggers User can request: "Put on your Gonzo hat" → Gonzo Truth-Seeker "Devil's advocate this" → Devil's Advocate "What precedents apply?" → Pattern Hunter "How does this fit with everything?" → Integrator Multi-Persona Analysis For thorough analysis, cycle through: Pattern Hunter - Context and precedents Gonzo Truth-Seeker - Novel insights Devil's Advocate - Failure modes Integrator - System coherence This ensures: context-aware → innovative → stress-tested → coherent Output Format When persona is active, optionally indicate it: [Gonzo mode] Let me challenge this assumption... Or run silently and just apply the reasoning framework. Integration Compounds with: brainstorming - Auto-activates Gonzo writing-plans - Auto-activates Devil's Advocate for review decision-trace - Auto-activates Pattern Hunter expert-extraction - Use Gonzo to find hidden knowledge

References:

See references/persona-details.md for full activation prompts and question sets