Decision-making framework based on Nicholas Carlini's research methodology
npx claudepluginhub moralespanitz/carlini-dmDecision-making framework based on Nicholas Carlini's research methodology. Evaluate and rank ideas, projects, and priorities across 10 dimensions: impact, uniqueness, comparative advantage, knowledge, de-risking, collaboration, timing, focus, communication, and kill/persist.

A Claude Code skill that turns Nicholas Carlini's research decision-making methodology into a structured framework you can invoke anytime you need to decide what to work on.
Bring one idea or ten. The framework scores each across ten dimensions, eliminates the losers, deep-dives the survivors, and delivers a ranked recommendation with concrete next actions.
Works for research, startups, engineering, product decisions, and general prioritization.
You invoke /carlini-dm and describe what you're deciding — a single idea, a list of competing options, or an active project you're not sure about.
For multiple options: Claude scores each option across all 10 dimensions in a quick elimination round, cuts the bottom half, then deep-dives the top 2-3 survivors before delivering a ranked recommendation.
For a single idea or active project: Claude walks through each dimension one at a time and delivers a verdict: Continue, Kill, Pivot, De-risk first, or Practice (craft work).
Either way, you get a direct recommendation and one concrete next action per option.
| # | Dimension | What it filters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Impact | Does it matter if this succeeds? |
| 2 | Uniqueness | Can only you do this, right now? |
| 3 | Comparative Advantage | Does this play to your specific strengths? |
| 4 | Knowledge & Independence | Do you understand the landscape AND think independently? |
| 5 | De-risking | Have you tested the hard part first? |
| 6 | Collaboration Leverage | Do you have the right team? |
| 7 | Timing | Is the window open? |
| 8 | Focus | Can you state this in one sentence? |
| 9 | Communication Potential | Can this be explained compellingly? |
| 10 | Kill / Persist | Should you stop, continue, or double down? |
"One excellent paper is worth a thousand mediocre ones, and takes less time to write." — Carlini
/plugin marketplace add moralespanitz/carlini-dm
/plugin install carlini-dm@carlini-dm
git clone https://github.com/moralespanitz/carlini-dm
ln -s $(pwd)/carlini-dm/.claude/skills/carlini-dm ~/.claude/skills/carlini-dm
/carlini-dm
Then describe what you're deciding. Examples:
Adapted from Nicholas Carlini's article:
How to win a best paper award (or, an opinionated take on how to do important research that matters) — 2026-03-09
The article covers coming up with good research ideas, executing them well, writing them up clearly, and navigating what happens afterwards. This skill distills the decision-making principles from all four sections into a scoring framework that works beyond academic research.
Nicholas Carlini is a researcher at the intersection of machine learning and computer security, currently at Anthropic. Previously a research scientist at Google Brain (2018–2023) and DeepMind (2023–2025). Ph.D. from UC Berkeley under David Wagner.
His papers have received best paper awards at IEEE S&P, USENIX Security (twice), and ICML (three times), and have been covered by the New York Times, the BBC, Nature, Science, Wired, and Popular Science.
More at nicholas.carlini.com.
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