sacred-cow-hunting

---
name: sacred-cow-hunting
description: Find and challenge domain's unquestioned beliefs. Systematic identification and productive violation of dogma.
execution: strategy
used-by: assumption-destruction
---

# Sacred Cow Hunting

Find and challenge domain's unquestioned beliefs.

## State Ledger

| Resource | Target | Current | % |
|----------|--------|---------|---|
| web-search | 30 | 0 | 0% |
| web-research | 10 | 0 | 0% |
| paper-overview | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| paper-search | 15 | 0 | 0% |
| paper-research | 8 | 0 | 0% |

## HARD-GATE

Cannot exit strategy until ≥80% of each budget line is consumed OR yield targets are met with justification for remaining budget.

## Available Tactics

| Tactic | Role |
|--------|------|
| assumption-enumeration | Surface paradigmatic assumptions (sacred cows) |
| inversion-protocol | Reverse sacred cows → build alternatives |

## Available SOPs

| SOP | Role |
|-----|------|
| sacred-cow-identification | Find domain's unquestioned beliefs |
| assumption-perturbation | Test consequences of violating sacred cows |
| benchmark-challenge | Challenge formalized sacred cows (standards) |
| reversal-generation | Generate formal negations of sacred cows |
| constructive-rebellion | Build alternatives that productively violate dogma |
| destruction-synthesis | Synthesize sacred cow hunting outputs |

## Execution Guidance

1. **Map the domain**: Identify the domain's core beliefs, rules, and "everyone knows" statements
2. **Hunt sacred cows**: Use sacred-cow-identification to find unquestioned beliefs
3. **Validate sacredness**: Confirm these are truly unquestioned (not just best practice)
4. **Research heretics**: Search for cases where violating these beliefs succeeded
5. **Perturb**: Use assumption-perturbation to model consequences of violation
6. **Reverse**: Use reversal-generation to create formal negations
7. **Build**: Use constructive-rebellion to form productive violations
8. **Synthesize**: Produce structured output via destruction-synthesis