Use when assessing whether to enter peace talks or risk signaling weakness. Evaluates adversary incentives, ally perceptions, and negotiation leverage to determine if peace overtures will succeed or backfire.

Use when leading during extreme crisis (siege, famine, disaster) and follower morale is collapsing due to resource disparity. Redistributes personal luxury resources to followers, enlists family members in support roles, forms elite volunteer units, and leads from the front to restore fighting spirit.

Use when evaluating whether to enter a powerful party's territory or accept an asymmetric alliance. Applies the earth puppet vs. wooden puppet parable to assess exit options, leverage once inside, and the risk of being trapped with no recourse in a 'tiger and wolf' (虎狼) state.

Use when evaluating siege feasibility or deciding whether to continue besieging a fortified city. Based on Xu Jia's advice against attacking Daliang (大梁) — systematically assessing defender strength, fortification quality, historical precedent, and cost of failure before committing.

Use when entrusted with dangerous levels of military or political power by a suspicious ruler. Based on Wang Jian's (王翦) strategy — repeatedly requesting personal land, houses, and gardens to signal you seek wealth, not power, thereby reducing the ruler's fear of betrayal.

Use when seeking to replace a capable enemy commander with an inferior one through disinformation. Based on Qin's strategy at Changping to replace Lian Po (廉颇) with Zhao Kuo (赵括) by exploiting the enemy ruler's impatience with defensive tactics.

Create and scaffold plugin directories for Codex with a required `.codex-plugin/plugin.json`, optional plugin folders/files, and baseline placeholders you can edit before publishing or testing. Use when Codex needs to create a new personal plugin, add optional plugin structure, or generate or update personal or repo-root `.agents/plugins/marketplace.json` entries for plugin ordering and availability metadata.

Use when forming military coalitions against a dominant adversary or recruiting allies for multi-front warfare. Analyzes enemy grievances to identify partners like 九江王黥布, 彭越, and 韩信, then coordinates simultaneous pressure to prevent force concentration.

Use when evaluating governance quality, assessing leadership effectiveness, or auditing a ruler's conduct. Provides positive and negative indicators covering talent retention, crisis response, wealth distribution, and popular sentiment to diagnose state health.

Use when facing a militarily superior enemy or planning attrition warfare. Employs deep fortification (深壁), supply line interdiction with light cavalry, and patient refusal of engagement to exhaust the enemy before launching a decisive counterattack during retreat.

Use when persuading a powerful but hesitant ally to provide military assistance during a crisis. Covers acknowledging the situation, establishing the value relationship, presenting urgency arguments, articulating consequences of inaction, and framing the ally's loss from delayed intervention.

Use when evaluating unexpected benefits or opportunities during crisis or competition. Applies the principle that unearned benefits often carry hidden costs: analyze the source, examine causation chains, assume strategic motivation, and evaluate long-term consequences before accepting or rejecting.

Use when rebuilding wealth in a new location while avoiding political danger. Based on Fan Li's transformation into Tao Zhu Gong (陶朱公): change identity, select trade-route hubs, practice honest labor, target modest 10% margins, and redistribute wealth when fame grows too large.

Use when deciding whether to exit after achieving major success to avoid becoming a threat. Based on Fan Li's departure from Yue: recognize danger signals ('when birds are gone, the bow is hidden'), assess your superior's character, resign formally, and leave completely with portable wealth.

Use when probing enemy leadership's judgment quality and decision-making state. Based on Zhong's grain-request test against Wu: make a resource request, observe whether wise counsel is heeded or ignored, and interpret the response to assess arrogance and internal divisions for attack timing.

Use when building a coalition to encircle and weaken a superior adversary through indirect means. Based on Feng Tong's advice to Goujian: conceal intentions, ally with enemy's rivals (Qi, Chu, Jin), flatter the enemy into arrogance, and strike when they are overextended on multiple fronts.

Use when negotiating survival after military defeat. Based on Goujian of Yue's approach at Kuaiji: offering humble submission, deploying skilled negotiators like Zhong, bribing corruptible enemy officials (Tai Zai Pi), and leveraging credible threats of mutual destruction to force acceptance.

Use when verifying rumors or sensitive intelligence without direct confrontation. Involves selecting an emotionally reactive proxy, designing a calibrated provocation to trigger unguarded responses, and interpreting reactions to confirm or deny suspected information, as demonstrated by Prince Shangchen.

Use when responding to internal rebellion, coup attempts, or revolts against legitimate authority. Covers initial assessment of rebel forces and loyalist strength, response options (negotiation, military action, external intervention), and post-rebellion protocols for punishment, pardon, and institutional reform.

Use when selecting officials based on capability rather than favoritism or nepotism. Follows Qi Xi's impartial model: recommending personal enemies for their competence and relatives for their merit, with transparent evaluation criteria covering skills, character, and past performance.