cc-tree

Language: English (canonical). Chinese: README.zh.md.

cc-tree makes Claude Code think in a tree you can audit: every node cites evidence, and the run stops when it converges. One exploration engine, four presets — brainstorm, adversarial critique, design-space exploration, code audit. Every node is fully derived with file:line or URL evidence, deferred leaves (defer / future-work / TODO / NEEDS-MORE-INFO) are banned, and a run stops on substantive convergence rather than on a node budget.

claude plugin marketplace add skymanbp/cc-tree
claude plugin install cc-tree@cc-tree

1 · The problem, and what cc-tree does about it

1.1 The problem it targets

Ask an LLM to brainstorm, review this critically, compare these designs or audit this file, and the same five failure modes come back:

Failure mode	What it looks like
Shallow coverage	the three most obvious angles, then a summary
Deferred leaves	"promising, needs a deeper survey — future work"
Pseudo-divergence	six branches that are one branch with the nouns swapped
Convenient convergence	"that about covers it", just as new ideas get expensive
Unverifiable output	a chat log: nothing cites a line, nothing survives the scroll-back

cc-tree inverts each row: fixed-breadth coverage, no deferrals, merged duplicates, a convergence test you can check, and a file:line or URL behind every claim.

1.2 What it does — five capabilities

#	Capability	Invoke	Deliverable
1	Divergent exploration — research directions or solution paths, grown until no new high-value branch appears	/cc-tree:brainstorm	shortlist.md
2	Adversarial critique of a document, argument or proposal; every leaf is CONFIRMED / MARGINAL / REFUTED, with the defense the artifact already mounts	/cc-tree:attack	confirmed.md
3	Design-space exploration — options × trade-offs × reversibility × cost, ending in a RECOMMENDED short-list	/cc-tree:design	options.md
4	Code audit — threat-model, contract and cross-file bugs a linter cannot see, each with file:line and a fix	/cc-tree:code-audit	findings.md
5	Chaining — brainstorm → design → attack, top-K piped between stages	/cc-tree:tree-chain	per stage + handoff log

All five are the same engine; a preset changes the vocabulary, never the loop (docs/ENGINE.md §10).

1.3 Working scope — what cc-tree is not

• Not a one-shot tool or a chat. A run is recursive and takes minutes to hours; after the §2.0 glossary grill it runs to convergence without asking (§F6). You steer with flags.
• Not a substitute for a domain expert, and not bundled with a model. It is prompt engineering on your Claude Code model setting; a human decides which leaves to act on.
• Not a linter. code-audit targets what static analysis structurally cannot.

2 · How it works

2.1 The shape — one root, growing outward

A run is a tree grown outward from one root — your input. Every expansion tries all 12 framings, so a node that grows gets one child per framing; each child is derived and scored, and only advances children are expanded again, so branches stop at different depths. The run ends on §6 convergence.

root is the input; a node is one idea, critique, option or finding; depth is the ring a node sits on; width counts the terminal tips, never a blocked one (§0.1); n counts every node. The picture is one run of one preset — the four presets differ only in the verdict words of the table beneath the tree (§5.2). Source: tools/gen_radial_tree.py, which refuses to draw a tree the engine could not produce.

2.2 The five irreducible steps

All five are specified in docs/ENGINE.md and binding on every preset.

flowchart LR
    R([root<br/>topic · artifact · code · design]) --> F{{12 framing passes<br/>§3.A–§3.L}}
    F --> D[per-node 12-field derivation<br/>evidence · no hedging · no defer]
    D --> S[score 5 dims → verdict]
    S -->|advances| RE((re-expand<br/>this leaf))
    RE --> F
    S -->|kept / pruned| K[keep in tree,<br/>don't re-expand]
    S -->|blocked| B[INCOMPLETE_FORBIDDEN<br/>drive to completion]
    B --> D
    S --> C{§6 convergence?<br/>6 conditions all true}
    C -->|no| RE
    C -->|yes| OUT[/final report +<br/>tree.md · tree.json/]

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