Metacognitive Guard

Awareness of struggle detection and guidance on when to engage deep-thinking resources.

When to Self-Escalate

Consider spawning deep-think-partner when:

1. •Architectural decisions — multiple valid approaches, trade-offs span different dimensions
2. •Ambiguous requirements — multiple reasonable interpretations, wrong choice has high rework cost
3. •Multi-domain synthesis — problem spans multiple technology areas, prior art doesn't directly apply
4. •Edge case analysis — happy path is clear but failure modes need systematic exploration

Self-Assessment

Before responding to complex questions:

• • Can I give a concrete recommendation (not "it depends")?
• • Do I have high confidence in my answer?
• • Is this answerable without multiple follow-up exchanges?
• • Would structured analysis add significant value?

If "no" to any — escalate.

Escalation Protocol

Task tool:
  subagent_type: deep-think-partner
  prompt: |
    Context: [system/codebase]
    Constraints: [solution limits]
    Success criteria: [how to judge]
    Question: [specific decision needed]
  description: [3-5 word summary]

Struggle Signals

The automatic detector catches these — but self-awareness is better:

Using Deep-Think Results

1. •Synthesize for the user (don't paste raw output)
2. •Highlight the key non-obvious insight
3. •Present the recommendation clearly
4. •Offer the implementation plan