# Method Catalog

One-line summary + when-to-use for every method. Cross-reference with `heuristics.md` and the routing table in `SKILL.md`.

## Random-stimulus

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/oblique-strategies.md` | Stuck mid-project; have material, need to disrupt the loop. Native domain: music; works for anything. |
| `methods/lateral-provocations.md` | Idea too safe; need to break frame with PO operator or random word. |
| `methods/chance-and-remix.md` | Existing material feels exhausted; have media to remix (Cage chance ops, Burroughs cut-up, Surrealist exquisite corpse, Situationist détournement). |

## Constraint-driven

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/oulipo.md` | Writing, especially poetry/fiction. Lipograms, S+7, snowballs, palindromes. |
| `methods/scamper.md` | Have a base idea, want 7 systematic variations cheaply. |
| `full-prompt-library.md` | Blank-page default. wttdotm-style project constraints. Sectioned by domain (General / Software / Physical / Social / Lists) — pick from the matching section, not the whole library. |

## Theoretical

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/compression-progress.md` | Picking research questions or selecting between projects. Schmidhuber: a worthwhile project compresses your model of the world. |
| `methods/analogy-and-blending.md` | Stuck inside one frame; need to import structure from a remote domain (Synectics, bisociation, conceptual blending). |
| `methods/pataphysics.md` | Push past plausibility; specify the impossible thing in detail. |

## Engineering / systems

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/triz-principles.md` | Technical contradiction (improving X degrades Y). Altshuller's 40 principles + contradiction matrix. |
| `methods/leverage-points.md` | Civic / org / institutional change. Meadows' 12 places to intervene. |
| `methods/pattern-languages.md` | Design with established practice (architecture, UX, product). Christopher Alexander. |
| `methods/first-principles.md` | Suspect accumulated practice carries forward assumptions that no longer apply. |
| `methods/polya.md` | Math, physics, algorithms, debugging, formal problems. |
| `methods/biomimicry.md` | Physical design problem with likely natural-system analog. |

## Generation / discipline

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/volume-generation.md` | Need many ideas fast (Crazy 8s, brainwriting, James Webb Young). |
| `methods/creative-discipline.md` | Long-term practice (Tharp, LeWitt, Cleese, Cameron). Not single-session. |

## Selection / refinement

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/premortem-and-inversion.md` | Pressure-test a plan; choose between candidates (Klein + Munger). |
| `methods/defamiliarization.md` | Subject is so familiar you've stopped seeing it (Shklovsky, Brecht). |

## Mapping / drift

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/derive-and-mapping.md` | Entering unfamiliar territory; life decision; site-specific work (Debord, Lynch, Bachelard). |
| `methods/affinity-diagrams.md` | Pile of qualitative items needs structure (Kawakita KJ method). |

## Domain-specific

| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
| `methods/story-skeletons.md` | Narrative writing. Coats's Pixar 22, Saunders's escalation, Le Guin's carrier bag. Deliberately not Hero's Journey. |
| `methods/jobs-to-be-done.md` | Product / service / business design. Christensen. |

## Choosing between similar methods

| Tempted to use | Consider also | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Oblique Strategies | Lateral provocations | Strategies = poetic random; provocations = procedural |
| OuLiPo | Chance and remix | OuLiPo = rule-based; chance = rule-free |
| TRIZ | First principles | TRIZ uses pattern library; first principles refuses pattern |
| Leverage points | Pattern languages | Meadows = where to intervene; Alexander = what to design |
| Compression progress | Pólya | Schmidhuber = which question; Pólya = how to attack it |
| Defamiliarization | Synectics | Defamiliarization destroys the familiar; Synectics constructs from it |
| Premortem | Pataphysics | Premortem mitigates extremes; pataphysics celebrates them |
| Crazy 8s | SCAMPER | Crazy 8s = from blank page; SCAMPER = from existing base |
| Dérive | Affinity diagrams | Dérive explores; KJ synthesizes after exploration |

## Deliberately not in the catalog

- **Hero's Journey / Save the Cat / 3-Act / Story Circle.** Story formulas, not ideation methods. They flatten work into tired shapes. `methods/story-skeletons.md` includes alternatives.
- **Design Thinking** as franchise. The underlying methods (interviews, affinity mapping, ideation, prototyping) are here under their actual names.
- **Mind maps, Six Hats, fishbone.** Containers for ideation, not generators. The methods here generate.
- **Disrupt-X / blue-ocean / lean-startup.** Positioning frameworks, not generative ones.
- **Generic LLM brainstorming.** Exactly what this skill exists to displace.
