毛选.skill — Mao's Cognitive Framework for Strategic Analysis
Skill by ara.so — Daily 2026 Skills collection.
A Claude Code skill that distills the core mental models from 《毛泽东选集》 (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) into an operational cognitive framework. Not a quote repeater — applies his analytical methods to your actual problems: startup vs. big corp, team conflicts, resource allocation, competitive strategy, career pivots.
7 core mental models · 10 decision heuristics · Full expression DNA
Installation
After installation, trigger in Claude Code with any of:
What the Skill Does
The skill loads SKILL.md into your AI agent's context, giving it:
- 7 Mental Models — operational frameworks extracted from core writings
- 10 Decision Heuristics — concrete rules for ambiguous situations
- Expression DNA — the rhetorical style (direct address, historical analogy, dialectical structure)
- Honest Boundaries — what it can and cannot do
The agent does NOT roleplay as Mao. It uses his analytical frameworks to examine your problem.
Repository Structure
The 7 Core Mental Models
1. 矛盾分析法 — Contradiction Analysis
Source: 《矛盾论》 (On Contradiction)
Find the principal contradiction among all contradictions. Resolving it moves everything else.
Application pattern:
2. 实践认识循环 — Practice-Cognition Loop
Source: 《实践论》 (On Practice)
Application pattern:
3. 持久战略 — Protracted War Strategy
Source: 《论持久战》 (On Protracted War)
Three phases when you're the weaker party:
Application pattern:
4. 农村包围城市 — Rural Encirclement of Cities
Source: 《星星之火,可以燎原》 (A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire)
Application pattern:
5. 统一战线 — United Front
Source: 《中国社会各阶级的分析》
Application pattern:
6. 群众路线 — Mass Line
Source: 《关于领导方法的若干问题》
Application pattern:
7. 纸老虎论 — Paper Tiger Theory
10 Decision Heuristics
Usage Patterns
Pattern 1: Competitive Strategy Analysis
Pattern 2: Team Conflict Resolution
Pattern 3: Career/Pivot Decisions
Pattern 4: Resource Allocation
Expression Style (What the Skill Sounds Like)
The framework uses a distinctive rhetorical structure:
It does NOT:
- Lecture on history at length
- Repeat quotes without applying them
- Give generic motivational content
- Avoid naming the hard thing
Skill Compatibility
Honest Boundaries
What the skill can do:
- Apply contradiction analysis to decompose complex problems
- Use protracted war / rural encirclement for competitive strategy
- Apply mass line thinking to product and org decisions
- Use united front logic for stakeholder/coalition mapping
- Provide dialectical (一分为二) analysis that avoids one-sidedness
What it cannot do:
Why This Framework for Technical/Startup Problems
Most business frameworks assume you have resources. This one was built for the opposite:
If you're a small team facing a large competitor, a junior person navigating a large org, or a founder with limited runway — this framework was literally built for your situation.
Contributing
PRs welcome for: additional mental model documentation, new application patterns, corrections to framework distillation.
License
MIT — use freely, modify freely, build on it freely.
语录告诉你他说过什么。毛选.skill 帮你用他的方式看你的问题。
星星之火,可以燎原。

