shift git:20260817.f04083fA

Immutable. This exact content is served forever at /api/v1/blob/4ff11c761cb2869e.

---
name: shift
description: Restate the problem in a distant domain's terms. Use when a problem circles inside its own vocabulary.
---

Shift only after the home vocabulary has failed more than once — a problem stated once, not yet restated in its own terms, has not circled yet. This runs inside one turn — nothing waits on the user.

1. Pick a distant domain that lives with the same tension daily — distant enough that its words are not synonyms for yours. Prefer the domain that has been paying for this tension longest: its answers are old and tested.
2. Restate the problem entirely in that domain's terms — no mixed vocabulary, every home term replaced.
3. Test the mapping before delivering anything: if each borrowed term lands one-to-one on a home term, the shift bought nothing — a renaming, not movement. Pick a more distant domain and run the restatement and this test once more. If the second mapping is also one-to-one, the problem resists shifting — carry that verdict out as the result instead of a restatement.

Hand back the restatement entirely in the distant domain's terms, with one line on what the borrowed terms expose that the home terms hid. Nothing more rides along: one restatement, one exposure line.

If the recasting ended with the problem resisting shifting, hand back that verdict instead — name the domains tried, and let no restatement stand as movement when the test showed none.

The question has a direct answer in its own vocabulary → answer it and proceed with what the answer settles; if the answer is something settled and the user shows they don't hold it → use **explain** skill.