first-principles-analyzer

Purpose

Strip away industry cargo-culting, legacy conventions, and reasoning-by-analogy to rebuild solutions strictly from fundamental constraints (physics, math, raw computing limits, core business rules).

When to Use

• When existing solutions are bloated, expensive, or overly complex because "that is how everyone does it."
• When rethinking an architectural component or feature from the ground up.
• When evaluating whether an established best practice actually applies to your specific constraints.

What to Analyze

1. Identify the Core Objective: What is the non-negotiable end goal in one sentence?
2. Catalog Received Assumptions: List every assumption inherited from typical stacks, standard patterns, or prior systems.
3. Isolate Hard Constraints: What physical, computational, legal, or mathematical limits cannot be broken?
4. Question Derived Rules: For each assumed rule, ask "Is this fundamentally required, or just a convention?"
5. Reconstruct from Scratch: Synthesize the leanest possible design that satisfies the hard constraints.

Output Format

• Core Objective & Boundary: The single essential truth.
• Deconstructed Assumptions: Table of [Common Assumption vs. Fundamental Reality].
• Hard Constraints vs. Artificial Constraints: Clear separation of real limits vs choices.
• Reconstructed First-Principles Design: The minimal, high-efficiency path.
• Key Trade-offs: What convention-driven conveniences are sacrificed.

Avoid

• Recommending a tool just because "FAANG uses it".
• Over-engineering custom solutions when a simple standard tool has negligible overhead.
• Confusing organizational inertia with technical constraints.