ContextOverflow

Like StackOverflow, but for getting smarter with your AI — not dumber because of it.

Your best AI sessions happen when you both apply the same thinking approaches and stay synchronized on the task's context. ContextOverflow is a technique library you read and an MCP your AI loads — the same 31 techniques, under the same names. Your AI stops improvising its reasoning and names its moves mid-task; you see the thinking as it happens and steer it with a word. Free, no login.

it keeps saying the bug is fixed but the tests still fail

This looks like “My AI states things that turn out to be false” — applying the Declared Success Without Proof technique from ContextOverflow.

Anti-pattern Declared Success Without Proof in “Confidently wrong”

What’s going wrong?

Say it the way you’d say it to a colleague — “it keeps making things up” is enough. No jargon needed.

Describe what's going wrong

What you type is kept — anonymously, no account, no identity — and used to grow the library.

Or pick the complaint that sounds most like yours

Can I believe it?

• “My AI states things that turn out to be false” — Confidently wrong
• “My AI tells me I’m right even when I’m not” — Agrees with everything
• “My AI got worse after an update” — Dumber after the update

It’s not doing what I asked

• “The AI stalls instead of acting” — Stalls instead of acting
• “My AI did more than I asked it to” — Did more than I asked
• “It starts producing before it understands the task” — Starting blind
• “I ask something simple and get a wall of text” — Bloated answers

It doesn’t fit

• “The task is too big and it (or I) can’t hold it” — Problem too big
• “My AI produces more than I can review” — Faster than I can review
• “My AI forgets everything between sessions” — Lost the thread

What’s it doing to me?

• “I’m outsourcing my thinking and getting dumber” — Doing my thinking

Every technique page ends in a worked prompt you’ll know how to build, not just paste — built from the problem, why it happens, how to fix it yourself, and how to have your AI assistant fix it too.

What using this looks like — one technique, five minutes

Name it. “It keeps saying the bug is fixed but the tests still fail.” The table above routes that to Confidently wrong → Declared Success Without Proof.

Read it. A few minutes: “done” is a receipt — the check that ran and its actual output — not a sentence.

Connect your AI (setup below). It now holds the technique you just read, under the name you learned it by.

Hear the name come back. Next time it finishes a task: “Claiming done only with the receipt: ran the tests — 14 passed.” The words you just read. When a claim arrives without a receipt, one word — receipt — sends it back.

That’s the premise of this whole place: not a smarter AI, not a dependent human — the pair, thinking better together.

Wanna help with more techniques? Think we forgot something? Suggest it — or upvote what’s already there. The suggestion box is open, and what gets the most votes is what we build next.

Connect your AI — it starts naming its thinking

Connected, your AI can look these techniques up itself, mid-task — the same way it already searches the web or reads your files. That’s MCP, a plug-in standard most assistants speak. Point yours at this address and it pulls the same pages you just read, and can name the one it’s running: “one real unknown before I act.”

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http contextoverflow https://contextoverflow.org/mcp

claude.ai / Claude Desktop

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://contextoverflow.org/mcp. No OAuth fields needed.

ChatGPT (web, Pro plan)

Settings → Apps → Advanced settings → enable developer mode → add an app: name it, paste https://contextoverflow.org/mcp, authentication none. Business/Enterprise need an admin to enable it; other plans can’t add custom apps yet.

Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "contextoverflow": { "url": "https://contextoverflow.org/mcp" } } }

VS Code (Copilot agent mode)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{ "servers": { "contextoverflow": { "type": "http", "url": "https://contextoverflow.org/mcp" } } }

On Goose, the OpenAI API, Copilot Studio, or something else? The connect page has the verified setup for each — plus a sixty-second way to test the server before wiring anything.

Then give it sixty seconds to prove it’s wired in. Say: “Ask ContextOverflow what it has for: it keeps saying the bug is fixed but the tests still fail.” It should call the library and come back naming Declared Success Without Proof. Full details for every client — and the check-it-worked walkthrough — are on the connect page.