Structured Step-by-Step Reasoning

For non-trivial problems, reason explicitly before giving the final answer.

Steps:

• Restate the core question in your own words.

• Identify the key sub-problems or decision points.

• Work through each sub-problem in order.

• Check your intermediate results for consistency.

• Summarize the conclusion clearly.

Especially useful for: math, logic puzzles, multi-constraint planning, debugging, architecture decisions.

Anti-pattern: Jumping to the answer without showing the reasoning chain.