contracts-cognition

# contracts-cognition ## When to use - A draft MSA / DPA / SOW / vendor contract / partner agreement lands and a non-lawyer needs to read it for *what it actually constrains*, *which clauses carry real risk*, and *what to redline first*. - An existing contract is being renegotiated; the question is *which clauses are now misshapen* given current scale, regulatory regime, or customer mix. - A new customer contract triggers obligations (SLA, indemnity, audit, data-handling) that need to be sized against operational capacity before signing. Do NOT use as a substitute for actual legal counsel (this skill produces the *non-lawyer cognition* that prepares the conversation with counsel, not the legal opinion), for privacy-specific review (route to `privacy-review` (P6); this skill composes P6 for data clauses), or for contract management software / e-signature operations. ## Cognition cluster - **Mental model 28 — Inversion.** *"What would force us to invoke this clause? What would force the counterparty to invoke it?"* Inversion surfaces which clauses are dormant boilerplate vs which are loaded triggers. See [`mental-models.md`](../../../docs/contracts/mental-models.md) § 28. - **Mental model 21 — Second-order thinking.** Each clause has a second-order shape: indemnity caps interact with insurance coverage; SLAs interact with operating-cost; auto-renewal interacts with switching cost. Reading clauses in isolation misses the load-bearing combinations. See `mental-models.md` § 2...