Stress-test an exciting idea against the boring explanation
An idea that seems novel is often just an obvious idea that hasn't met its obvious explanation yet.
- Use it for
- Anyone with an idea that feels exciting who wants to check it's actually novel before investing in it.
An idea can feel genuinely exciting and still not be novel — often there's a boring, obvious explanation for why it hasn't been done, or why it wouldn't work as well as it seems, and that explanation is easy to skip past while caught up in the excitement of a new idea. This prompt deliberately looks for the boring counter-explanation before investing further.
When not to use this
If you're still in early, loose brainstorming and don't want to prematurely kill ideas, save this scrutiny for after you've picked a direction worth taking seriously.
Did this work?
You know honestly whether the idea survives its most boring, most obvious counter-explanation, not just that it feels exciting.
Tested on claude-opus-5. Evidence status is draft; it moves to battle-tested only on recorded runs, never by hand.