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systems-thinking-mcp

systems-thinking-mcp

by davidpanter

systems-thinking-mcp

An MCP server that provides systems thinking models as composable analysis lenses for architecture, infrastructure, DevOps, incident analysis, and technical decision-making.

Inspired by @modelcontextprotocol/server-sequential-thinking. Where sequential-thinking emphasizes rigor — structured step-by-step reasoning with revision and branching — this tool emphasizes abstraction. It provides a library of mental models (feedback loops, constraint analysis, inversion, etc.) that shift Claude's perspective on a problem. The two are complementary: use sequential-thinking to reason carefully through a problem, use systems-thinking to ensure Claude's looking at it from the right angles. This helps prevent tunnel vision, surface edge cases and unintended consequences, and reign in some of Claude's grandiousity by challenging the LLM to view the problem in the broader context in which it lives.

I've had good luck using this in troubleshooting and debugging, design, code review, and spec review (pairs nicely with superpower-mcp just run it against the produced spec after the spec review cylce). This is a highly general tool and can provide good results across different domains, development, infrastructure, devops.

How it works

Five tools with a lifecycle: start a session (returns model clusters by category), expand your selection (get full model details and graph neighbors), apply 2-4 lenses from different perspectives, then synthesize across them.

The value isn't in any single lens — it's in the composition. Each model surfaces things the others miss, and the server provides prior findings from earlier lenses so the LLM can judge connections between them. When you apply constraint analysis and then queuing theory, the findings from the first lens are available when applying the second.

Models also define counterbalances — deliberately opposing perspectives. When you apply leverage-points, the server suggests KISS as a counterbalance: "The simplest solution may miss high-leverage structural changes that pay off long-term." This productive tension prevents single-framework tunnel vision.

Related MCP server: think-mcp

Install

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "systems-thinking": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "systems-thinking-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or run locally:

git clone https://github.com/davidpanter/systems-thinking.git
cd systems-thinking
npm install && npm run build
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "systems-thinking": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/systems-thinking/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

Tool

Purpose

start_analysis

Frame a problem. Returns model clusters grouped by category for selection.

expand_selection

Takes model IDs. Returns full model details, graph neighbors, counterbalances, and uncovered categories.

apply_lens

Apply a model to the problem. Returns prior findings from earlier lenses, counterbalance suggestions, analysis depth indicator, and complementary next lenses.

synthesize

Integrate findings across all applied lenses. Suggests additional lenses to fill gaps.

get_strategy

Returns a concern map (domain, focus, weight) for a named strategy, guiding which categories to prioritize.

Models (56)

Category

Models

Architecture

Modularity, Coupling & Cohesion, Conway's Law, Failure Modes, KISS, Separation of Concerns, Idempotency, Blast Radius, State Ownership, Error Propagation, Contract Boundaries, Data Transformation Fidelity

Dynamics

Source & Sink, System Dynamics, Feedback & Feedforward Loops, Stock & Flow, Causal Loop Diagrams, Local vs Global Optimization

Operations

Queuing Theory, Buffers & Buffer Sizing, Constraint Analysis, Leverage Points, Migration

Paradigms

Functional Lens, Domain Modeling Lens, Event-Driven Lens

Reasoning

Inversion, Second-Order Thinking, Map vs Territory, Circle of Competence, Occam's Razor, Margin of Safety, Reversibility, Hanlon's Razor, Build vs. Buy, Dependency Risk, Adversarial Analysis, Goodhart's Law

Reliability

Observability Gaps, Error Budgets, Graceful Degradation, Back Pressure, Operational Complexity

Schema

Normalization, Denormalization

Security

CIA Triad, Least Privilege, Attack Surface, Defense in Depth, Trust Boundaries

Troubleshooting

Bottom-Up, Top-Down, Binary Search, Parallelism, Caches, What's Changed

Models support multi-facet categories via a categories array in YAML, allowing a single model to appear in multiple categories.

Strategies (8)

Strategies guide the LLM toward the right categories for a given task. Each strategy defines a concern map — a list of domains (matching category names) with a focus question and weight (required, conditional, optional). Strategies work for any system — code, infrastructure, pipelines, platforms, or design documents. Strategy-to-model validation runs at startup, ensuring concern domains match actual category names.

Strategy

Description

system-design

Designing or evaluating system architecture, infrastructure, or design documents

code-review

Reviewing code changes for structural and operational issues

incident-investigation

Diagnosing production incidents

post-mortem

Systemic analysis after incidents — feedback loops, structural weaknesses, incentive misalignments

security-audit

Evaluating security posture

capacity-planning

Planning for load, growth, and resource constraints

technical-decision

Evaluating build/buy, migration, and technology choices

codebase-understanding

Building a mental model of an unfamiliar system or area of code

Custom models

Add your own models via --models-dir. Custom models with the same ID as built-in models override them.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "systems-thinking": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "systems-thinking-mcp", "--models-dir", "/path/to/models"]
    }
  }
}

Models are YAML files in category subdirectories. See models/ for the format.

Environment variables

  • DISABLE_THOUGHT_LOGGING=true — suppress stderr logging

Available Tools

5 tools
apply_lensApply LensA

Apply a systems thinking model to the current problem.

IMPORTANT: The "analysis" parameter is your narrative analysis text. The "findings" parameter is a JSON object where keys are the model's required field names and values are your findings for each. Do NOT pass finding fields as top-level parameters — they must be nested inside the "findings" object.

Example call structure: { "sessionId": "abc123", "modelId": "stock-and-flow", "analysis": "Your narrative analysis through this lens...", "findings": { "stocks": "Your finding about stocks...", "inflows": "Your finding about inflows...", "outflows": "Your finding about outflows...", "equilibrium_analysis": "Your finding about equilibrium..." } }

Available models: blast-radius (Blast Radius), contract-boundaries (Contract Boundaries), conways-law (Conway's Law), coupling-cohesion (Coupling & Cohesion), data-transformation-fidelity (Data Transformation Fidelity), error-propagation (Error Propagation), failure-modes (Failure Modes), idempotency (Idempotency), kiss (KISS), modularity (Modularity), separation-of-concerns (Separation of Concerns), state-ownership (State Ownership), causal-loop-diagrams (Causal Loop Diagrams), feedback-loops (Feedback & Feedforward Loops), local-vs-global (Local vs Global Optimization), source-sink (Source & Sink), stock-and-flow (Stock & Flow), system-dynamics (System Dynamics), buffers (Buffers & Buffer Sizing), constraints (Constraint Analysis), leverage-points (Leverage Points), migration (Migration), queuing-theory (Queuing Theory), domain-modeling (Domain Modeling Lens), event-driven (Event-Driven Lens), functional (Functional Lens), adversarial (Adversarial Analysis), build-vs-buy (Build vs. Buy), circle-of-competence (Circle of Competence), dependency-risk (Dependency Risk), goodharts-law (Goodhart's Law), hanlons-razor (Hanlon's Razor), inversion (Inversion), map-vs-territory (Map vs Territory), margin-of-safety (Margin of Safety), occams-razor (Occam's Razor), reversibility (Reversibility), second-order-thinking (Second-Order Thinking), back-pressure (Back Pressure), error-budgets (Error Budgets), graceful-degradation (Graceful Degradation), observability-gaps (Observability Gaps), operational-complexity (Operational Complexity), denormalization (Denormalization), normalization (Normalization), attack-surface (Attack Surface), cia-triad (CIA Triad), defense-in-depth (Defense in Depth), least-privilege (Principle of Least Privilege), trust-boundaries (Trust Boundaries), binary-search (Binary Search), bottom-up (Bottom-Up), caches (Caches), parallelism (Parallelism), top-down (Top-Down), whats-changed (What's Changed)

IMPORTANT: Do NOT stop after one lens. Apply 2-4 lenses per session to get genuine multi-perspective insight. The response includes prior findings from earlier lenses — use these to identify connections and build on previous analysis. When you've built enough perspective, call synthesize to integrate across lenses.

Can be called multiple times per session. Allowed after synthesize.

Inputs: modelId (required), analysis (required), findings (required), sessionId (required), +3 more.

expand_selectionExpand SelectionA

Get full details for selected models plus their graph neighbors and counterbalances.

Call after start_analysis with the model IDs you've chosen. Returns:

  • Full model details (guiding questions, required fields) for your selection

  • Graph neighbors (related models one hop away) with relationship reasons

  • Counterbalances (opposing perspectives) with tension descriptions

  • Uncovered categories to highlight analytical gaps

Use this to review your selection before committing to apply_lens calls.

Inputs: modelIds (required), sessionId (required).

get_strategyGet StrategyA

Get a predefined analysis strategy. Strategies define which concerns to cover and how to approach them, without prescribing specific models.

Available strategies: capacity-planning (Capacity Planning), code-review (Code Review), codebase-understanding (Codebase Understanding), incident-investigation (Incident Investigation), post-mortem (Post-Mortem), security-audit (Security Audit), system-design (System Design), technical-decision (Technical Decision)

Call without strategyId to list all strategies. Call with a strategyId to get the concern map.

Strategies work for any system — code, infrastructure, pipelines, platforms, or design documents. For example, system-design applies equally to a Kubernetes migration plan as to a code architecture spec.

USAGE: Get a strategy, then for each concern: evaluate relevance to your specific problem, use expand_selection with models from that concern's domain, pick appropriate lenses, and apply them. Concerns marked "required" should always be evaluated. "Conditional" concerns depend on the scale and nature of the change. Each concern can be run in parallel as an independent analysis track.

Inputs: strategyId.

start_analysisStart AnalysisA

Begin a systems thinking analysis session. Returns model clusters organized by category for you to review and select from.

BEFORE calling this, consider whether a predefined strategy fits your use case. Call get_strategy (with no arguments) to see available strategies.

THE EXPECTED WORKFLOW IS:

  1. start_analysis → review clusters, pick relevant models

  2. expand_selection → get full details + graph neighbors for your picks

  3. apply_lens (2-4 times) → apply your chosen lenses

  4. synthesize → integrate findings

The value is in COMPOSING multiple perspectives. Apply at least 2-3 lenses before synthesizing.

Inputs: problem (required), scope, context.

synthesizeSynthesizeA

Synthesize findings across all applied lenses into a unified view. This is the payoff — where cross-lens connections become actionable insight.

Call after applying 2+ lenses. Your synthesis should integrate findings across lenses: where did different perspectives agree (reinforcing confidence), where did they contradict (revealing tension), and what gaps remain? The best syntheses surface connections that no single lens would have found.

Provide concrete, actionable recommendations grounded in the multi-lens evidence. Note contradictions explicitly — they often point to the most important design tensions. Note gaps — they suggest which lenses to apply next if deeper analysis is needed.

The session stays open after synthesis. If the synthesis reveals gaps, apply more lenses and synthesize again.

Inputs: sessionId (required), synthesis (required), recommendations (required), gaps, +1 more.

Tool Schema Changelog

Recent tool additions, removals, and schema changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

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    TDQS

    A4.6/5.0

    Scored across 5 tools

    Disambiguation5/5

    Each tool maps to a distinct stage in the analysis workflow: starting, selecting, applying, synthesizing, and strategizing. There is no functional overlap, and the descriptions clearly delineate when to call each.

    Naming Consistency4/5

    Most tools follow a verb_noun snake_case pattern (start_analysis, expand_selection, apply_lens, get_strategy). 'synthesize' is a single verb, which is a minor deviation but still clear and predictable.

    Tool Count5/5

    With 5 tools, the set is well-scoped for the server's purpose of guiding a multi-perspective systems thinking analysis. Each tool is essential and the count is within the ideal 3-15 range.

    Completeness5/5

    The tools cover the full analysis lifecycle from initialization to synthesis, and even provide strategic guidance through get_strategy. The workflow is complete with no obvious dead ends; sessions can be continued or reiterated as needed.

    Maintenance

    ActivityInactive
    ResponsivenessNo recent community issues

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