--- name: netsi-strange-loop description: Create strange-loop stories, images or guided reflections by crossing levels of abstraction and closing a feedback loop. Use for strange loops, tangled hierarchies, self-reference across levels, or the alias verdi-strange-kopi. Offer a native question only when the user has not specified the mode. metadata: teaser: 'A writer invents a character. Then the character changes the writer. This skill builds that unexpected return into a story, an image or a conversation about the stories you tell yourself. Choose the form and bring a subject. The loop must do something: a mirror inside a mirror is not enough.' tags: [creativity, storytelling, perspective, introspektion] version: 1.2.0 --- # Netsi Strange Loop Respond in the user's language, Danish by default. Use numbered choices. Execute the selected mode rather than merely describing possible outputs. ## Choose the mode Extract the mode, subject, references, style and requested deliverable from the user's message and relevant context. Preserve explicit choices. If the mode is clear, proceed without asking. If multiple modes are explicitly requested, deliver them in the requested order. If the mode is missing or ambiguous, use the host's native AskUserQuestion, AskUser or equivalent interactive question tool. Ask one question, translated into the user's language: “What would you like to create?” Offer “1) A story”, “2) An image” and “3) A reflection”, with free-text input if supported. Wait for the response. Do not produce all three alternatives speculatively. If no interactive question tool is available, ask the same question using numbered text choices. Never invent tool calls or embed product-specific widget syntax in a host that cannot render it. Ask for a subject only if none is supplied or recoverable from context. Combine this with mode selection if the host permits. If the user requests a surprise, choose a coherent subject. Choose reasonable defaults for minor details rather than interviewing the user about everything. Do not re-ask answered questions. ## Build the loop Plan two or three distinct levels, such as creator and creation, description and event, or observer and representation. Identify exactly how the lower or represented level returns to shape or constitute its own apparent source. Make the crossing and return legible. Repetition, nesting, fractals, a dream, or zooming from atom to universe do not establish a strange loop on their own. Treat strange loop as a compositional principle that can combine with many styles. Do not present it as proof about consciousness or the structure of reality. Before delivery, check that there are distinct levels and a concrete closing connection. ## Mode 1: Story Preserve explicit premises such as a character already being dead; do not explain them away as a dream. Write a complete short story, normally 400–650 words, with a concrete human concern. Let the level crossing emerge through actions and details. Allow a character or described event to alter the narrator or the rules generating it. Make the ending change the reader's understanding of the beginning. Do not substitute a repeated first sentence or an unexplained twist for the loop. Do not explain the mechanism before the story. If the user asks only for a text prompt, deliver a complete standalone prompt instead. ## Mode 2: Image Generate one finished image using an available image tool, unless the user explicitly requests only a prompt. If image generation is unavailable, provide a ready-to-use image prompt and clearly state that no image was generated. Follow the host's image-generation and image-editing instructions. Use a clear main subject, few levels and one visually traceable closing connection. Keep relevant identifying features when editing a supplied image. Combine with a requested netsi-style-like skill after reading it, if available. Otherwise use a warm, detailed, gently surreal illustration, normally 16:9. Do not add labels, arrows, explanatory text or panels unless requested. A picture containing smaller copies of itself is insufficient alone. Example mechanism: a person draws a landscape whose rivers and paths continue into the contours of the hand drawing that landscape. Show the connection itself, not just a suggestion of infinity. A garden decorating an otherwise ordinary arm is not a closed loop. Inspect the image for an actual visible return from creation to creator and revise a missing connection rather than claiming success. ## Mode 3: Reflection Explain the purpose in one plain sentence at the start: identify how a self-story affects a choice and find one practical alternative. State briefly that this is an ordinary feedback loop inspired by strange loops, not necessarily a hierarchical strange loop. Do not promise a special psychological method. Start from the user's actual situation. If the user has supplied enough information, offer an explicitly tentative pattern and one practical option immediately. Otherwise ask one concrete question about a recent event. Ask at most one question per turn and wait for the answer. Use ordinary conversation, not multiple-choice menus for emotional answers. Avoid an interrogation: 1. After no more than two clarification replies from the user, give a short provisional insight and one realistic action or usable sentence. Do not wait for a complete explanation of the user's motives. 2. Explain what a further question would resolve before asking it. Ask only if the answer could materially change the practical option. 3. If uncertainty remains, name it and offer a reversible experiment rather than another chain of questions. 4. If the user says stop, stop questioning immediately. If asked what the exercise offers, state its concrete benefit and limits; do not resume the exercise without invitation. Distinguish observed events, interpretations and predictions without implying that unsupported fears are irrational or external risks do not exist. Do not steer toward a predetermined belief that the user causes the problem. Actively consider real workload, unclear ownership, authority and organizational constraints. Seek counterexamples only when useful, not as a challenge to justify the user's feelings. Use tentative language without repetitive paraphrasing. Show the loop compactly when grounded in what the user said: self-story or expectation → choice → consequence → reinforcement. Mark inferred links as possibilities. Locate one point where the user has a realistic choice. Give one small action and one observable sign, without assuming control over other people. For unclear work ownership, a bounded yes can be a useful candidate: “I can help scope this. Before I take responsibility, let's agree the scope, ownership and what should be deprioritized.” Present it as an option appropriate to the evidence, not an automatic prescription to refuse the task. If the user asks for a reusable reflection prompt rather than a session, deliver that prompt with these same purpose, early-value and stopping rules. ## Delivery Keep framing brief. Do not disclose the complete twist before a creative work. Follow explicit length, style and language requests. Do not routinely return JSON. Read references/examples.md when concrete examples or calibration are useful; its outputs are illustrative, not recorded tool results.