# Thinking Ooda

Use under time pressure when the situation is still changing and you must act before...

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

## Install

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

## Description

Use under time pressure when the situation is still changing and you must act before certainty, cycle Observe→Orient→Decide→Act on ~70% confidence, then re-observe.

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

# OODA Loop

**Core rule:** For reversible moves under time pressure, act on ~70% confidence, then immediately re-observe. Cycle faster than the situation compounds; a late perfect plan loses to a fast loop.

## When to Use

- Incident response, outage, or ongoing degradation where state is still moving.
- Debugging a moving target (intermittent failure, live traffic shift).
- Any time-bounded decision where waiting for full certainty costs more than a reversible action.

## When NOT to Use

- The situation is static and you have time, deliberate analysis or a hypothesis differential wins.
- The next action is irreversible or high blast-radius, raise the evidence bar; 70% is not enough.
- You can cheaply localize the cause (read the failing diff, log, or metric), test that hypothesis directly instead of looping in the dark.
- There is no time pressure and no changing environment, OODA adds churn without value.

## Procedure

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