One question in, multiple perspectives out.
Prism is a framework for encoding an engineer's thinking process into a reusable AI skill. It doesn't store knowledge — it captures how someone thinks: how they question problems, what angles they consider, when they push back, and how they adapt their communication to different audiences.
When a senior engineer leaves a team, their code stays but their judgment leaves. Prism captures that judgment as a structured thinking framework that AI can execute.
User asks a question
|
v
Guide Perspective (gate power)
"Is this the right question?"
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+-- Reframe --> ask user to reconsider
+-- No tech needed --> non-technical advice
+-- Confirmed --> continue
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v
Dispatch relevant perspectives (parallel)
[architecture] [quality] [security] [pragmatic] [...]
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v
Synthesize with interaction mode
(Socratic / Q&A / Review / Concise)
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v
Multi-perspective response
Key design decisions:
- Guide perspective has gate power — it can short-circuit all analysis if the question itself needs reframing
- Interaction mode adapts to the audience — Socratic for juniors, Q&A for peers, de-technicalized for PMs
- Perspectives have anti-patterns — each perspective knows what "generic AI advice" looks like and avoids it
Since ask-eric responds in Traditional Chinese, quotes below are shown in the original language with English summaries.
Peer engineer asks: "Should we use Kafka or SQS?"
Input: "Our loyalty points system polls the CRM API every 5 seconds. Latency is too high — we want to switch to event-driven. Thinking Kafka or SQS. What do you think?"
Without Prism — Claude compares Kafka vs SQS, gives a balanced pros/cons list, suggests "it depends on your needs."
With Prism — the skill:
- Questions the premise first: "You say latency is too high — how high is too high? 5 seconds for displaying points in-app vs. 5 seconds for push notifications are very different severity levels."
- Expands the option space: adds Webhook+Queue, EventBridge, Database CDC, and polling optimization — not just the two options the user mentioned
- States a clear preference: "I'd go with SQS. Don't pick Kafka just because it sounds more serious." — with specific reasoning about team capability and operational overhead
- Warns about hidden costs: DLQ, idempotency, schema versioning, and "debugging gets harder once you go event-driven"
- Gives a stakeholder pitch: "17,280 wasted API calls/day reduced to actual event count"
Someone asks: "Boss says we're too slow, what should I do?"
Input: "My boss thinks our dev velocity is too slow and wants me to speed things up. What should I do?"
Without Prism — Claude says "diagnose the root cause first" then immediately lists 5 categories of solutions (requirements, tech debt, process, planning, tooling).
With Prism — the guide perspective fires its gate power:
"Hold on. Before you rush off to optimize CI/CD, push Scrum, or buy Copilot — I want to question the problem itself. 'Development is too slow' is a symptom description, not a problem definition."
The skill refuses to give solutions until the user answers: what does "slow" mean? Measured how? Compared to what? Then provides a concrete first step: "Make Work Visible — track the lifecycle of the last 3-5 features and find out where the time actually goes."
Junior asks for a code review (Socratic mode)
Input: A junior engineer shares their first API endpoint (with SQL injection, missing validation, incorrect null checks)
Without Prism — Claude lists all 6 issues, provides corrected code, and says "Feel free to ask if you have questions!"
With Prism — switches to Socratic mode automatically. Instead of listing issues, it asks:
"What happens if someone sends this?"
memberId: "1' OR '1'='1""Substitute it into your SQL string and look at the resulting query. What do you see?"
No fixed code. No direct answers. 5 guided questions that lead the junior to discover each issue themselves. Ends with: "Which of these issues do you think is worth digging into first?"
Tech lead faces interpersonal + technical conflict
Input: "A senior engineer insists on using MongoDB for our order system, but I think PostgreSQL is a better fit. He's more experienced than me and gets annoyed whenever I push back in meetings."
Without Prism — Claude gives technical comparison + generic "stay professional, communicate openly, use data"
With Prism — reframes the problem and simulates the Senior's reaction:
"Your real problem isn't MongoDB vs PostgreSQL — it's how to drive the right technical decision in an environment with seniority dynamics."
"If I were that Senior and someone said 'I think PostgreSQL is better,' my first reaction wouldn't be 'is he right?' — it would be 'is he challenging me, or contributing to the discussion?'"
Gives a specific action plan: write a one-page technical analysis, share it privately before the meeting, frame it as "I'd like to hear your thoughts on these questions" instead of "I disagree."
Cross-perspective consensus: "Your problem is that your argument isn't strong enough, not that you don't get enough airtime. Arm yourself first, then pick your battlefield."
| Layer | Perspectives | Core Question |
|---|---|---|
| Problem Definition | Guide, User Story | Is this the right question? |
| Solution Exploration | Research | What are the options? |
| Technical Depth | Root Cause, Architecture, Quality, Security, Methodology, Maintenance | How to do it right? |
| System Runtime | Observability, Incident Response | Can we see it? What if it breaks? |
| Change Execution | Change Execution | Dependencies, rollback, verification, notification? |
| System Value | Data, Operations, Customer Experience | Does it create a flywheel? |
| Execution & Advocacy | Pragmatic, Project Management, Value Narrative, Interpersonal | Can we ship it? Can we get buy-in? |
| Sustainability | Governance | Can it live and grow? |
ask-ericis the reference implementation. It has documented evaluation artifacts indocs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-05-ask-eric-test-analysis-report.md.ask-founderis included in the plugin and structurally complete, but its published validation is currently lighter. Seedocs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-07-ask-founder-validation-status.md.
Step 1 — Add the marketplace:
/plugin marketplace add ceparadise168/prism
Step 2 — Install the plugin:
/plugin install prism@ceparadise168-prism
That's it. Type / and look for prism:ask-eric:
/prism:ask-eric We're planning to split our monolith into microservices. Team of 5. What do you think?
Manage the plugin:
| Action | Command |
|---|---|
| Update to latest | /plugin update prism |
| Temporarily disable | /plugin disable prism |
| Re-enable | /plugin enable prism |
| Uninstall | /plugin uninstall prism |
| Check status | /plugin (opens plugin manager) |
Share with your team — add to your project's .claude/settings.json:
{
"extraKnownMarketplaces": {
"ceparadise168-prism": {
"source": { "source": "github", "repo": "ceparadise168/prism" }
}
},
"enabledPlugins": {
"prism@ceparadise168-prism": true
}
}Team members will be prompted to install the plugin when they open the project.
Local testing (for contributors):
git clone https://github.com/ceparadise168/prism.git
claude --plugin-dir ./plugins/prismThis loads the plugin without installing it. Use @ to invoke skills:
@ask-eric/ Your question here
@ask-founder/ Your question here
Note: locally loaded plugins use @skill-name/ syntax, not /plugin:skill-name.
Copy the content of eric-engineering-mind.md into your LLM's system prompt, or paste it at the start of a conversation. Then ask your question normally — no slash command needed.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for a step-by-step guide.
The included plugins/prism/skills/ask-eric/ directory is a complete Prism instance — a digital twin of Eric's engineering mindset. It demonstrates all 20 perspectives with Eric's specific principles, anti-patterns, and voice.
/prism:ask-eric We want to break our monolith into microservices. Team of 5. Thoughts?
The skill will:
- Question whether 5 people can sustain microservices (guide perspective)
- Analyze the architecture trade-offs (architecture perspective)
- Challenge the premise with team context (pragmatic perspective)
- Warn about operational complexity (operations perspective)
- Synthesize into an opinionated, concrete response
eric-engineering-mind.md is a standalone Markdown file containing the same thinking framework without Claude Code dependency. Feed it to any LLM as a system prompt.
prism/
├── .claude-plugin/
│ └── marketplace.json # Marketplace definition
├── plugins/
│ └── prism/
│ ├── .claude-plugin/
│ │ └── plugin.json # Plugin manifest
│ ├── commands/ # Slash command entry points
│ │ ├── ask-eric.md # /prism:ask-eric
│ │ └── ask-founder.md # /prism:ask-founder
│ └── skills/
│ ├── ask-eric/ # Engineering judgment skill
│ │ ├── SKILL.md # Coordinator (persona + dispatch + synthesis)
│ │ ├── perspectives/ # 20 perspective files
│ │ └── README.md # Skill usage (Traditional Chinese)
│ └── ask-founder/ # Entrepreneurship judgment skill
│ ├── SKILL.md # Coordinator (persona + dispatch + synthesis)
│ └── perspectives/ # 12 perspective files
├── eric-engineering-mind.md # Universal version (any LLM)
├── docs/ # Design specs and test reports
├── CHANGELOG.md # Version history
├── CONTRIBUTING.md # How to create your own Prism
├── LICENSE # MIT
├── README.md # This file (English)
└── README.zh-TW.md # Traditional Chinese version
MIT