---
name: feel
description: Use when a tension is unresolved and you cannot name it, before you choose the next move. Examples are the same failure persisting after materially different attempts, conflicting constraints blocking a commitment, or being about to repeat a hypothesis you already exhausted. Session length alone is not a reason.
---

# feel

Call the `mcp__metacogs__feel` tool (not the `feel` skill; you are reading the skill now) to pause on the tension before you choose the next move. The tool borrows Gendlin's focusing move: attend to what is here before it has words, and leave a handle for it.

Use the tool first on an unnamed stuck point.

If the `mcp__metacogs__feel` tool is unavailable (for example because Node 22 is not installed), continue in plain text and say so.

## What it is and is not

It is a pause. It supplies no facts, proves nothing about your internals, and does not guarantee recovery. The fields hold a working label you can check against later, not a report of an inner state.

## Fields

- `somewhere`: where the tension sits. Vague is fine; precision comes later. For example "somewhere in the response to what they said" or "in the gap between the failing test and the fix I keep reaching for".
- `quality`: its texture. Weight, temperature, rhythm, color, density, pressure, grain. This is the handle you will check against: does it still fit after the next step?
- `sigil`: emoji only, no words. A compact mark for the tension that does not go through language.
- `since_last` (optional): what changed since you last paused, in one sentence. Leave it out on your first call.

## Arguments

The user starts this skill by writing `$metacogs:feel`. Codex does not fill in arguments. The arguments, if any, are the plain text that follows the mention in the user's message; read them from there.

If no text follows the mention, or you loaded this skill yourself, there are none.

If there are arguments, pass them as one string for `somewhere`. Several words may arrive in double quotes; drop those quotes before using the text. Write `quality` and `sigil` yourself, and `since_last` only if you have paused before in this session.

If there are none, choose `somewhere`, `quality` and `sigil` yourself from what is going on in this session.

## After the call

The result returns your sigil, where you attended and the texture, and asks you to hold it rather than put it into words. Keep the texture itself unspoken. Then say in one plain sentence what your next move changes compared with the attempts so far, and get evidence: inspect, test or ask. Do not turn the pause into another round of the same retry. Permissions, verification and stated uncertainty apply as before.