@dzhechkov/design-thinking

Human-centered product design toolkit for Claude Code — Stanford d.school 5-phase Design Thinking + a 6th Validate phase, 25 academically-grounded methodologies, as an installable npx toolkit.

goap-research-ed25519 — self-learning (optional, since this release). When @dzhechkov/harness-cli is on PATH, the bundled research skill recalls prior METHOD lessons at the start of an investigation and records new ones at four named moments. Without it the skill behaves exactly as before and says so once — it is detected, never required. Lessons go to a SEPARATE store (<project>/.health-brain/.dz) and never to the shared one; recall reads both, so engineering lessons transfer in and medical ones do not leave. A format check refuses identifier shapes (email, phone, record numbers) — it does NOT judge whether a lesson describes a method or a person, and says so: that judgement is the agent's, per the teach protocol. See skills/goap-research-ed25519/SKILL.md.

Install

# Install into the current project (Claude Code)
npx @dzhechkov/design-thinking init

# Preview without writing
npx @dzhechkov/design-thinking init --dry-run

# Overwrite an existing install
npx @dzhechkov/design-thinking init --force

Then in Claude Code:

/design-thinking [your product or user problem]

…or just describe a user-facing problem — the skill auto-activates.

What you get

A full toolkit assembled around the BTO-benchmarked design-thinking orchestrator (benchmark history lives in the monorepo). init installs into .claude/:

| Component | What | |-----------|------| | 8 skills | design-thinking + its dependencies (below) | | 1 command | /design-thinking | | 1 rule | design-thinking-conventions.md (output dirs, phase gates, anti-patterns) | | 1 shard | design-thinking.shard.md (the skill's DT-xxx gates with tier scopes, checkpoint banner) |

Bundled skills

| Skill | Phase | Role | |-------|-------|------| | design-thinking | orchestrator | The 6-phase pipeline + 25 methodologies | | explore | entry (required) | Socratic Task Brief before Empathize | | goap-research-ed25519 | Empathize (required) | Verified, Ed25519-signed user/market research | | problem-solver-enhanced | Define | 5 Whys + TRIZ when root cause is deep | | six-thinking-hats | Ideate | Team divergence across 6 perspectives (testing-focused variant; auto-activation is testing-scoped — invoke explicitly during ideation) | | frontend-design | Prototype | Working HTML/React prototype from wireframes | | structured-reasoning | any | Picks the reasoning strategy (ToT / CoT / …) | | reflection-loop | any | Critique → revise cycle on each artifact |

The skills are copied verbatim from the canonical @dzhechkov/skills-meta / @dzhechkov/keysarium / @dzhechkov/skills-qe packs, not rewritten (the design-thinking orchestrator itself is the BTO-benchmarked piece).

The pipeline

explore (Task Brief)
   ↓
1. Empathize  → goap-research-ed25519        (verified research, not vibes)
2. Define     → JTBD · CJM · VSM + HMW       (+ problem-solver-enhanced if needed)
3. Ideate     → HADI hypotheses from HMW     (+ six-thinking-hats for teams)
4. Prototype  → frontend-design              (if digital UI; min 2 iterations)
5. Test       → usability (≥5 users) + HADI hypothesis validation
6. Validate   → pilot validation             (L/XL tiers — DT-011)

The skill's complexity router decides which phases run (S = 1→2→5, M = 1→2→3→4→5, L/XL = all six). Each phase pauses at the skill's checkpoint banner (STEP N … Complete

• tier + summary); you steer with ок / углуби <area> / freeform feedback.

When to use it

• Designing a new product / service / feature where the real user need is unclear.
• "product discovery", "understand users", "build a CJM/JTBD", "prototype and test".

Not for: well-defined technical tasks or bugs (use problem-solver-enhanced / debug-loop), or pure research with no product intent (use goap-research-ed25519).

Commands

| Command | Purpose | |---------|---------| | init | Install the toolkit into .claude/ (default) | | list | List the bundled skills | | doctor | Verify the install in this project | | --help / --version | — |

Install modes — where this fits

The DZ Harness Hub offers three ways to get Design Thinking:

| | Install | Gets you | |---|---------|----------| | Single skill | dz init --select design-thinking | Just the orchestrator (auto-activates) | | Preset | dz setup --preset meta | DT + the rest of the development-process skills | | npx toolkit | npx @dzhechkov/design-thinking init | This package — DT + all deps + command + rule + shard |

Use the npx toolkit when you want Design Thinking as a self-contained, governed capability of a project (slash command + conventions + gates), with every dependency bundled so the chain works offline.

Part of the DZ Harness Hub monorepo — this package on npm. MIT.