Chapter 09 — Cheat Sheets

Quick reference matrix

Pattern	Core Shape	Use When	Stop Condition
Maieutic	Answer + claim tree	Need justification	Depth reached / consistent
Self-Refine	Draft→Critique→Refine loop	Quality polishing	No material issues
Least-to-Most	Ordered subproblems S1..Sn	Compositional reasoning	Final aggregation
Self-Consistency	K sampled rationales	Reduce stochastic error	Majority stable
RAG	Retrieve + cite	Factual grounding	Answer or unknown

Maieutic skeleton

Q: <question>
1) Draft answer.
2) Claims: Claim: ... Because: ...
3) Expand depth N.
4) Label SUPPORT / CONTRADICT.
5) Prune contradictions.
6) Output { answer, explanation_tree }.

Self-Refine skeleton

GEN: produce draft.
CRITIQUE: issues by category + checklist.
REFINE: apply checklist + CHANGELOG.
STOP: if 'NO MATERIAL ISSUES' or max_rounds.

Least-to-Most skeleton

DECOMPOSE: S1..Sn (easiest->hardest).
SOLVE: S_i referencing previous.
RETURN: final answer + steps JSON.

Self-Consistency skeleton

FOR i in 1..K: sample reasoning (temp>0).
COLLECT answers.
SELECT majority / best-scored.

RAG skeleton

EMBED + INDEX docs.
RETRIEVE top k.
PROMPT with passages + cite requirement.
ANSWER or unknown.