# Thinking Map Territory

When a claim, doc, test, metric, or assumption conflicts with observed behavior, stop...

- Repository: https://github.com/tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills (1690 stars)
- Category: Testing
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-08-07
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-map-territory -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-map-territory -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-map-territory -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills --skill thinking-map-territory -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills`

## Description

When a claim, doc, test, metric, or assumption conflicts with observed behavior, stop theorizing from the map and verify the live code or data; let territory overrule.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Map Territory

Docs, tests, diagrams, metrics, comments, and mental models are maps. Running code and actual data are the territory. When they disagree, verify territory and update the model, never force reality to match the description.

## When to Use

- Observed behavior contradicts a doc, test expectation, diagram, comment, dashboard, or prior assumption.
- A claim about the system rests on a secondary source rather than current code or data.
- Tests pass but production or manual behavior is wrong.
- You are about to theorize why something happens before inspecting what happens.
- A decision depends on whether a model, schema, or metric is still current.

## When NOT to Use

- The map is the artifact you are asked to edit (doc, diagram, spec), that artifact is the task territory.
- Same path already verified this session, reuse that observation.
- Map is authoritative and generative (codegen types, derived schema) with no claimed drift.
- The mismatch cannot change the decision, note and move on.
- Competing causal hypotheses after territory is confirmed, switch to scientific-method.
- Security exploit construction, use red-team; this skill only settles model-versus-observation.

## Procedure

The rest: https://github.com/tjboudreaux/cc-thinking-skills/blob/HEAD/skills/thinking-map-territory/SKILL.md