From grimoire
Concentrates all resources on the opponent's weakest point while avoiding their strength. For competitive strategy, resource allocation, and market decisions where local superiority defeats global parity.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/grimoire:apply-force-concentrationThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Map every contested area as empty or full, concentrate all force on the empty while completely avoiding the full, remain formless to prevent the opponent from concentrating against you, and shape the engagement so the opponent's strength becomes irrelevant.
Map every contested area as empty or full, concentrate all force on the empty while completely avoiding the full, remain formless to prevent the opponent from concentrating against you, and shape the engagement so the opponent's strength becomes irrelevant.
Origin: Chapter 6 of The Art of War — "Weak Points and Strong" (虛實, Emptiness and Fullness) — is the tactical chapter that operationalises the indirect strategy principle. "An army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness." (Ch.6, Giles trans.) Chapter 12 (Attack by Fire) extends the principle: disruption — like fire — multiplies force at the point of application.
Adopted by: Moltke the Elder's campaign theory (19th century Prussian military) operationalised this as Kesselschlacht (encirclement) — concentrate overwhelming force at a single point rather than equal force along the entire front. Peter Thiel's Zero to One restates it for startups: dominate a small market completely rather than entering a large market partially. Amazon's geographic expansion strategy executed it precisely — dominate one city (Seattle), then the next, rather than launching everywhere simultaneously with insufficient density.
Impact: Dispersed force produces dispersed results — mediocre everywhere. Concentrated force produces decisive results in the chosen engagement, even against a stronger opponent overall. A startup with 10% of an incumbent's resources that concentrates 100% on a single segment can achieve local superiority and win that segment, then use that position to expand.
Why best: Most organisations spread resources because it feels safer — coverage everywhere, committed to nothing. This produces an opponent who is weak everywhere and dominant nowhere. Concentration requires the discipline to explicitly abandon contests you cannot win and commit fully to the contests you can. The principle scales from feature prioritisation to market selection to sales territory allocation.
Sources: Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Giles trans. 1910) — Ch.6 (Weak Points and Strong), Ch.12 (Attack by Fire); Moltke the Elder, Instructions for Superior Commanders (1869); Thiel, Zero to One (2014); Bezos letters on geographic expansion discipline
List every market segment, product feature, customer account, sales territory, or channel where you are competing or considering competing. This is the complete map of the battlefield.
For each area, write a one-line description of what you would need to win it and what your opponent's current strength in that area is.
For each contested area, assess: is the opponent's position 虛 (empty, weak, over-extended, or undefended) or 實 (full, strong, deeply entrenched, actively defended)?
虛 (empty) signals:
實 (full) signals:
This step requires discipline. You will abandon areas where you are currently present but cannot win, and concentrate all resources on the areas where the opponent is weakest.
"He who tries to defend everything defends nothing." (attributed to Frederick the Great, consistent with Ch.6 principle)
Concentration checklist:
For product strategy: concentrate engineering, marketing, and sales on the segment where your differentiation is sharpest and the opponent's coverage is weakest.
For sales: concentrate the best reps on the accounts with the highest probability of winning, not spread evenly across all accounts.
"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." (Ch.6, Griffith trans.)
Formlessness means the opponent cannot identify your point of concentration and cannot bring their strength to bear against it before you have established your position.
Tactics for formlessness:
The objective is not just to avoid their strength but to actively manoeuvre them into positions where their strength cannot be brought to bear on your point of concentration.
Shaping tactics:
Initiative means you choose where battles happen. An opponent who has initiative forces you to respond, depleting resources and attention on their chosen terrain. Maintaining initiative keeps the battles on terrain you chose.
Signs you have lost initiative:
Restoring initiative: Re-assess the map, find 虛 areas the opponent has not yet defended, and re-concentrate there before the opponent can establish their position.
Thiel/PayPal: dominate online auctions first (segment concentration): PayPal's first concentration: eBay power sellers. Not "all e-commerce" — a specific, 虛 segment where existing payment solutions were terrible and the opponent (traditional financial services) had no interest in serving. 100% of product and growth resources concentrated on eBay power sellers until PayPal had dominant share of that segment. Then expanded. eBay eventually acquired PayPal for $1.5B — they could not dislodge them from their core segment.
Feature concentration (product team, 3 engineers): Map: competitor has features in CRM integration, reporting, mobile app, API, and team management. Assess: CRM integration (incumbent has deep Salesforce integration — 實); reporting (adequate — 實); mobile (weak — 虛); API (undocumented, poor — 虛); team management (solid — 實). Concentrate all 3 engineers on mobile + API. Build 2 features to superiority rather than 5 features to mediocrity. Win the mobile-first and developer segments; expand from there.
Geographic market expansion (Amazon's density model): Amazon's physical expansion (grocery, retail) uses force concentration: launch in one city, achieve delivery density that makes unit economics work, then expand. Launching in 50 cities simultaneously at insufficient density produces poor unit economics everywhere. One city at full density produces a profitable model to replicate.
Spreading to cover all areas: The natural instinct is to be present everywhere to capture every opportunity. This produces a mediocre competitor in every area and a strong competitor in none. Name your concentration and abandon everything else.
Concentrating on 實 areas because they are large: A large, well-defended market is attractive and often the most crowded. The opponent's strength in a large market does not make it strategically accessible. Find the 虛 area adjacent to the large market and build from there.
Becoming visible before the position is established: Announcing your target segment or concentration point before you have a defensible position invites the opponent to counter-concentrate. Move quietly and quickly; announce when the position is already established.
Losing initiative by responding: Allowing the opponent's roadmap, feature announcements, or competitive moves to determine your priorities. This transfers initiative to the opponent. Maintain your own offensive concentration; respond only when the threat is to your core position.
Failing to re-assess: An area that was 虛 last quarter may be 實 today. Continuously update the 虛/實 map and re-concentrate as the landscape changes.
npx claudepluginhub jeffreytse/grimoire --plugin grimoireClassifies competitive terrain to avoid fighting on ground that advantages the opponent, and creates or occupies terrain that structurally favours your position. Based on Sun Tzu and Porter.
Guides strategic thinking to find minimum interventions that achieve objectives when outmatched or under-resourced. Includes framing checks and alternative generation.
Guides users through a structured strategy interview using the kernel framework (diagnosis, guiding policy, coherent action). Helps think through company, product, team, career, or initiative strategy via conversation.