About this project

Thinking Claude was an open-source project designed to make Claude on claude.ai think comprehensively before responding. The repository is now retired: its README states that Claude has become a reasoning model with strong built-in thinking capabilities, making the project no longer necessary. The project consisted of two main components: 1. Thinking Protocol — a set of versioned instructions (kept in model_instructions/, including v5.1-extensive, v5.1, v5-lite, v4, v4-lite, and v3.5) that guide Claude through a natural, thorough thought process before answering. Users apply them through Claude's custom style feature by pasting an instruction set as custom instructions. 2. Browser Extension — a Chrome extension (with a Firefox version noted as in development and a deprecated legacy Chrome version) that formats Claude's thinking output in the web interface. Documented features include making the thinking process easy to read, folding and unfolding sections of thoughts, one-click copying of any part, automatic handling of new messages, and a clean, modern design. Installation options described in the README: the Chrome Web Store listing (noted as possibly outdated) or manual installation of the latest release (v3.2.3) by enabling Developer mode at chrome://extensions and loading the unpacked dist folder. After setup, users visit claude.ai, create a custom style via the 'Choose style' selector, paste the desired instruction set, and start chatting; the extension then renders the thinking process automatically. The README notes the project was aimed at exploring Claude's 'deep mindset' in daily tasks rather than benchmark gains, and that it worked with both Free and Pro plans using the Claude 3.5 Sonnet model. Claimed benefits included better reasoning, transparency into how conclusions are reached, improved organization of long conversations, and built-in verification steps. The code is released under the MIT License. While active, the project welcomed bug reports, feature proposals, and pull requests, and it credited @lumpinif and Claude for the extension.