🧪Synthesis Tool
alignment_check
Check whether a decision aligns with your established principles and past decisions. A consistency check for your thinking.
When to use this
Use alignment_check when facing a decision and wanting to verify it's consistent with your principles and past choices. Especially useful when you're under pressure or tempted to deviate from your values.
Quick Example
mcporter call brain.alignment_check decision="switch from REST to GraphQL for the public API"Response
## Alignment Check: "switch from REST to GraphQL for the public API"
🎯 SEED Principle Alignment:
✅ Compression (aligned)
GraphQL reduces over-fetching — clients request
exactly what they need. Aligns with "compress to
essentials."
⚠️ Bottleneck (tension)
Adding GraphQL introduces a new layer of complexity.
Your past decisions favor simplifying the bottleneck,
not adding to it.
✅ Agency (aligned)
Gives consumers more control over their queries.
📋 Past Decision Context:
- You chose REST for brain-mcp API (2025-01): "simpler,
fewer moving parts"
- You rejected GraphQL for Optilab (2024-11): "overkill
for internal API"
- You adopted GraphQL at WOTC (2024-08): "justified by
20+ consumer teams"
💡 Assessment: Partial alignment. Your principles support
the data efficiency angle, but your track record shows
you only adopt GraphQL at scale. Consider whether the
public API truly has enough diverse consumers.Parameters
| Name | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
decision | string | Yes | — | The decision or course of action to evaluate |
How It Works
- Loads your 8 SEED principles (the foundational mental models)
- Searches conversation summaries for past decisions related to the topic
- Evaluates alignment/tension between the proposed decision and each relevant principle
- Synthesizes an assessment with supporting evidence from your history
Examples
Business decision
mcporter call brain.alignment_check decision="focus on building product vs becoming visible online"Technical decision
mcporter call brain.alignment_check decision="use a managed database service instead of self-hosted"