I Have ADHD

Overview

I Have ADHD is an output-style skill that solves a specific, widespread complaint about AI coding agents: they bury the answer. Instead of getting a direct next step, users get a preamble explaining what the agent understood, a middle section that restates the problem, and finally — three paragraphs down — the actual action to take. For someone with ADHD, that structure is actively hostile. For most developers, it is simply wasteful.

The skill enforces a strict output contract: every reply leads with the actionable next step, numbers multi-step work, caps lists at five items, restates context each turn (so you do not have to scroll back), suppresses tangents, gives specific time estimates for tasks, and makes wins visible with explicit confirmation when something succeeds. The result is replies you can act on in the first line, not the last paragraph.

How It Works

Install the skill into your coding agent and activate it with /i-have-adhd. From that point, every agent reply is restructured according to ten rules:

1. Action first — the next thing to do appears in the first line
2. Numbered steps — multi-step work is always numbered, never buried in prose
3. Five-item cap — lists longer than five items are chunked or summarized
4. State restated — each turn restates relevant context so the reader never needs to scroll back
5. No preamble — no “Great question!” or “I understand you want to…”
6. No closing pleasantries — no “Let me know if you need anything else!”
7. Tangent suppression — related-but-not-requested information is omitted
8. Time estimates — tasks include specific duration estimates
9. Win visibility — successes are explicitly confirmed, not buried in output
10. Consistent formatting — every reply follows the same visual structure

The skill stays active until the user says “stop adhd mode.”

Use Cases

• ADHD developers — the primary audience, who need responses structured for executive function challenges
• Anyone tired of verbose agent output — the skill’s popularity (31K+ stars) proves the demand extends far beyond ADHD
• Pair programming sessions — numbered steps make it easy to follow agent suggestions in real-time
• Time-pressured debugging — action-first output means you see the fix immediately, not after three paragraphs of context
• Team environments — consistent output formatting makes it easier to share agent responses in Slack or PRs

Alternatives

• Built-in “Concise” mode in Claude Code — reduces verbosity but does not enforce numbering, state restatement, or time estimates
• Citability/claude-code-adhd-skills — a mirror of two ADHD-focused skills (mirror + librarian) from a different author
• Custom CLAUDE.md instructions — teams can write their own output formatting rules, but i-have-adhd packages the most-requested patterns into a single install

Who It’s For

Any developer who reads agent output and thinks “just tell me what to do.” The ADHD framing is genuine — the skill was designed for neurodivergent workflows — but the adoption pattern shows that concise, action-first output is a universal preference that most agents fail to deliver by default.