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Identifies the single operational constraint blocking a strategic goal, verifies it is the true limit, and invests to solve it as an engineering problem rather than optimizing around it.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
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/grimoire:apply-binding-constraint-removalThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Identify the single operational limit that is currently preventing your strategic goal — verify it is actually the binding constraint and not a symptom of a deeper one — then invest to solve it as an engineering or capability problem, rather than optimising around it as every competitor does, gaining structural advantage that is durable because competitors have built their entire operation on t...
Identify the single operational limit that is currently preventing your strategic goal — verify it is actually the binding constraint and not a symptom of a deeper one — then invest to solve it as an engineering or capability problem, rather than optimising around it as every competitor does, gaining structural advantage that is durable because competitors have built their entire operation on the assumption the constraint is permanent.
Origin: Zhuge Liang's five northern expeditions (228–234 AD) against Cao Wei were repeatedly frustrated by the same operational limit: supply logistics in the Qinling mountain range between Shu Han (Sichuan) and Wei territory. The mountain roads were too narrow, too steep, and too unreliable to sustain supply lines adequate for a prolonged campaign. Cao Wei's generals — particularly Sima Yi — recognised this and adopted a consistent counter-strategy: avoid decisive battle, fortify, and wait for Shu's supply lines to collapse, forcing Zhuge Liang to retreat. Rather than accepting this constraint as permanent — as every other commander in the same terrain had — Zhuge Liang invented solutions. The wooden ox (木牛) and gliding horse (流马) were mechanical transport systems: improved load-carrying devices for mountain terrain, typically identified by historians as refined single-wheel barrow variants optimised for the specific terrain of the Qinling roads. He also modified the repeating crossbow (连弩) to increase its rate of fire, allowing fewer soldiers to project more firepower — addressing a related constraint on force multiplier efficiency. Each invention directly targeted the operational constraint that was limiting the strategic objective. The supply breakthrough was not complete — the strategic goal of reunifying Han was ultimately not achieved — but the inventions extended Zhuge Liang's campaign capacity beyond what any predecessor in the same terrain had achieved.
Adopted by: Constraint removal is the mechanism behind the most durable competitive advantages in technology, logistics, and manufacturing. Amazon's Prime delivery promise was constrained by the capacity and reliability of third-party carriers (UPS, FedEx); Amazon's response was to build its own logistics network — Amazon Logistics, launched 2013–2015 — which by 2019 was delivering more packages annually than FedEx. The constraint that UPS and FedEx accepted as the boundary of what Amazon could promise became the investment thesis for an entirely new capability. SpaceX's commercial space business was constrained by launch cost — at $10,000/kg to low Earth orbit, commercial satellite economics were marginal and the market was limited to governments and large telecoms; Elon Musk identified rocket reusability as the specific constraint and invested to solve it. By 2020, Falcon 9's per-kg cost had dropped to approximately $2,720, opening commercial space economics to new categories of customers. TSMC's semiconductor manufacturing business was constrained by yield and transistor density at advanced process nodes; TSMC's investment in process technology R&D allowed it to reach 3nm fabrication while Intel's internal manufacturing remained stuck at 7nm — not because Intel lacked resources, but because Intel had not treated the constraint as the primary investment priority.
Impact: Constraints accepted as permanent become the design assumptions around which competitors build their entire operation. When one competitor removes the constraint — through engineering investment that others have not made — the competitors who have optimised around the constraint find themselves structurally disadvantaged: their operation is optimised for a world where the constraint is permanent, and re-optimising for a world where it is not requires rebuilding from the foundation. Amazon's logistics investment did not just give Amazon cheaper delivery — it made UPS and FedEx structurally less able to compete with Amazon's delivery speed and reliability, because the carriers' entire network was designed for a customer base, not a single high-volume shipper with full network visibility.
Why best: The alternative to constraint removal when a strategic goal is blocked is either (a) optimising around the constraint — which every competitor also does, producing no structural advantage — or (b) abandoning the strategic goal. Constraint removal is the third option: treat the permanent limit as an engineering problem and invest to solve it. This is expensive and time-consuming, which is exactly why competitors have not done it — and exactly why doing it creates durable advantage.
Sources: Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms 三国志 — "Zhuge Liang Zhuan" 諸葛亮傳 (280–290 AD); Goldratt, The Goal (1984) — Theory of Constraints; Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma (1997); Bezos, Letters to Shareholders (1997–2021)
A constraint is binding if removing it would allow the strategic goal to be achieved; a constraint is non-binding if removing it would simply shift the bottleneck elsewhere. Most organisations have many constraints, but the Theory of Constraints (Goldratt, 1984) establishes that at any given time, only one constraint is actually limiting throughput — the others are not binding because the binding constraint is limiting output before they become relevant.
To identify the binding constraint:
In Zhuge Liang's case: the strategic goal was to sustain a northern campaign sufficient to destabilise Wei. Supply logistics was the binding constraint: if supply lines could sustain 90 days of campaign, the goal was achievable; at 30 days, it was not. Wei's strategy (avoid battle, wait for supply collapse) confirmed the binding nature of the supply constraint.
A constraint that competitors are actively solving is not the source of durable structural advantage — it will be solved, and the first-mover advantage is temporary. A constraint that everyone in the industry has accepted as permanent and is optimising around is the target.
Signals that a constraint is genuinely accepted as fixed:
Signals that a constraint may be solvable (even if no one is currently solving it):
Constraint removal is expensive. The investment case requires:
Amazon's investment case for its logistics network: removing UPS/FedEx capacity constraints would enable same-day delivery that no retailer could match, defending Prime membership value and creating a logistics business that competitors would eventually pay to use. Cost: billions over a decade. Value: Amazon Logistics revenue exceeded $60 billion by 2022.
The constraint removal investment must begin before the constraint becomes critically limiting. Waiting until the constraint is acute means:
Zhuge Liang began developing logistics solutions between the first and subsequent northern expeditions — not mid-campaign. Amazon began serious investment in its own logistics capability in 2013–2015, before UPS and FedEx capacity became critically limiting. SpaceX began reusability investment in 2011, four years before the Falcon 9 first stage landing in 2015.
The investment horizon for structural constraint removal is years. Begin when the constraint is a limit on ambition, not when it is a limit on survival.
A constraint solution purchased from a vendor is available to all competitors who face the same constraint. The advantage is temporary and minimal — the vendor will sell to competitors next quarter. A constraint solution that must be developed internally — through engineering, operational learning, and system-building that cannot be purchased — is durable because competitors must invest the same time to develop it.
Distinguish:
Zhuge Liang's wooden ox was not a purchased vehicle — it was a designed system optimised for the specific constraints of Qinling terrain that could not be replicated without understanding the problem. The engineering specificity of the solution is its durability.
Solving the primary constraint does not remove all constraints — it shifts the bottleneck to the next most limiting factor. The strategic goal that was blocked by the original constraint is now blocked by a new constraint.
After the primary constraint is resolved:
Amazon's logistics network solved the carrier capacity constraint. The next binding constraint — last-mile delivery in dense urban areas — became Amazon's next major logistics investment (Amazon Fresh infrastructure, drone delivery R&D, urban micro-fulfilment centres). Each constraint removal enabled the next.
Amazon Logistics — removing carrier capacity constraint: Amazon Prime's delivery promise was dependent on UPS and FedEx capacity, pricing, and reliability — constraints Amazon could not control. During peak periods, carriers deprioritised Amazon packages; during growth periods, carrier pricing increased with demand. Amazon began building its own logistics network in 2013: first as a supplement to carriers, then as a replacement for the majority of its own deliveries. By 2019, Amazon Logistics was delivering more parcels annually than FedEx in the US. The constraint removal enabled next-day and same-day delivery that no third-party carrier would provide; it also created a logistics business (Amazon Logistics services) that generated $58 billion in revenue by 2022 and began competing with the carriers it had previously been dependent on.
SpaceX — removing launch cost constraint: In 2002, commercial space was constrained by launch cost: approximately $10,000/kg to low Earth orbit on legacy launch vehicles (Atlas V, Delta II). At this price, the satellite launch market was limited to governments and large telecoms; commercial space applications at scale were uneconomical. Elon Musk identified launch cost reusability as the specific constraint and invested in solving it — against the assumption, held by every incumbent launcher, that rocket reusability was not economically viable. The Falcon 9 first stage landing in December 2015 demonstrated reusability. By 2020, SpaceX's cost-per-kg was approximately $2,720 — a 73% reduction. This cost structure enabled Starlink (a satellite internet constellation that would have been uneconomical at legacy launch costs) and created a structural cost advantage over ULA, Arianespace, and Roscosmos that competitors are still attempting to replicate. The constraint that the industry had accepted for 60 years was solved by treating it as an engineering problem.
Netflix encoding — removing streaming quality constraint: In 2007, Netflix's streaming business was constrained by codec efficiency: the bandwidth required to deliver acceptable video quality exceeded what most broadband connections could reliably handle, limiting the addressable market to high-bandwidth subscribers and producing quality complaints from others. Rather than accepting this constraint — and the market size ceiling it implied — Netflix invested in per-title video encoding: an algorithm that analyses each title's visual complexity and optimises the encoding parameters per-title, rather than using a standard encoding for all content. The result was a 20% reduction in bandwidth requirements for equivalent quality. The constraint that other streaming services accepted as fixed (video quality degrades with available bandwidth) became a Netflix advantage — it could deliver better quality at lower bandwidth than competitors who used standard encoding.
Zhuge Liang's northern expeditions — removing supply constraint: The Qinling mountain range presented a supply logistics constraint that had limited military operations in the region for centuries: the roads were too narrow and steep for adequate supply volumes, forcing any campaign to be time-limited by the supplies that could be carried at the outset. Sima Yi's counter-strategy explicitly depended on this constraint: fortify, avoid battle, and wait for supply lines to collapse. Zhuge Liang responded by engineering around the constraint — the wooden ox (improved load-carrying device optimised for mountain terrain) extended the effective campaign supply radius. The constraint was not fully solved — the northern campaigns ultimately could not be sustained to strategic conclusion — but the engineering investment extended Zhuge Liang's campaign capacity beyond all prior precedent in the terrain, demonstrating that the constraint was an engineering problem rather than a permanent geographical limit.
Optimising the non-binding constraint: Investing in improving throughput at a process that is not actually limiting output — because it is more accessible, better understood, or politically easier to address — while the binding constraint remains untouched. The improvement has no effect on the strategic goal because the binding constraint still limits output before the improved process is reached. Goldratt's insight: improving a non-binding constraint improves local efficiency but does not improve overall throughput.
Solving the symptom rather than the root constraint: A constraint that manifests as "we can't close enterprise customers" may be a symptom of "our security documentation is not enterprise-grade," which is itself a symptom of "we have not invested in compliance infrastructure." Solving the surface symptom (hire more enterprise salespeople) without addressing the root constraint (build the compliance infrastructure) produces no improvement in enterprise win rates.
Buying the commodity solution: Purchasing from vendors what should be built as a proprietary system. The vendor will sell the same solution to competitors next quarter. Constraint solutions that can be purchased produce temporary and minimal advantage. The durable advantage comes from building the proprietary system that competitors cannot purchase.
Waiting until necessity: Beginning the constraint removal investment when the constraint is already limiting survival rather than ambition. Constraint removal takes years; starting in crisis produces crisis-quality solutions at crisis prices. The organisations that removed constraints durably began their investments when the constraint was a ceiling on growth, not a floor on survival.
Solving the constraint with a solution that recreates it at a different layer: Amazon solved the carrier capacity constraint with its own logistics network — but if Amazon's own network becomes constrained by last-mile urban density, the constraint has been recreated at a different layer. Constraint removal investments must track the system to identify where the new binding constraint has emerged after the original one is resolved.
npx claudepluginhub jeffreytse/grimoire --plugin grimoireApplies constraint reasoning to limits blocking progress. Diagnoses whether a constraint is real, reframes it creatively, reduces scope to minimum viable, or maps workarounds.
Use when optimizing latency or throughput in a pipeline and one stage dominates—focus all effort on that single bottleneck, since speeding up the others changes nothing until it's fixed.
Maps competitive fronts to identify the one viable sequence of achievable positions when direct competition is impossible. Based on Zhuge Liang's Longzhong Plan.