carlkibler Wide-Open Brainstorm
Run an expansive product/experience brainstorm that is both strategic and playful. Use this skill when the user wants to go wide, pull ideas from multiple perspectives, blend practical/actionable concepts with whimsical metaphors, and discover a product's deeper thesis rather than merely produce a feature list.
Core stance
Treat the session as a brainstorming room: part product strategy, part systems design, part improv, part command-center fantasy, part ruthless distillation.
Optimize for:
- serious ideas with operational leverage;
- whimsical ideas that reveal non-obvious organizing metaphors;
- movement across altitudes: strategic overview, project/group structure, tactical actions;
- concrete next actions without prematurely narrowing the dream;
- a final synthesis that captures the "why," not only the "what."
Avoid:
- staying at one altitude;
- turning the session into immediate implementation planning too soon;
- producing a flat list of features with no thesis;
- letting whimsy become decoration instead of sense-making;
- losing the user's own language and vibe.
Workflow
1. Capture the seed
Restate the user's idea in a richer prompt that preserves their language and expands the intent. Include:
- the core product/problem area;
- the human outcome the user wants;
- the tactical state being managed;
- the strategic/big-picture state being understood;
- the desired emotional/brand flavor;
- explicit permission to be practical, silly, weird, and ambitious.
If the user provided enough direction, proceed without questions. If not, ask one short question about the desired domain or artifact.
2. Environment detection
Check the direct Claude CLI:
command -v claude >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "claude available"
Use project-aware subagents for roles that need local files. Use direct claude -p calls for outsider roles. Add --model opus for the hardest synthesis. If Claude fails, report it and continue with subagents; do not route through another provider.
3. Role assignment
Use the 6 core roles below. Run every available agent type; don't leave models idle.
Core roles
| Role | What they generate | Ideal agent type |
|---|---|---|
| Strategist | Product thesis, priorities, what existing tools miss, positioning | Code-aware subagent (reads local README, docs, recent git) |
| Operator | Concrete workflows, statuses, actions, edge cases, day-to-day mechanics | Code-aware subagent |
| Cartographer | Views, maps, grouping patterns, zoom levels, navigation metaphors | External LLM (fresh eyes — no codebase access) |
| Archivist | Memory, synthesis, knowledge capture, long-term coherence, recovery flows | External LLM |
| Trickster | Whimsical metaphors, silly-but-useful delight, strange UI lenses, absurdist reframes | External LLM (most creative divergence happens with no anchoring context) |
| Skeptic | What becomes noise, what users ignore, what shouldn't ship, local maxima | claude -p --model sonnet with a blunt mandate |
| Executioner | The strongest honest case for never building this at all — wrong timing, wrong audience, wrong founder, already solved, fundamental flaw in premise | Any model with a blunt mandate — always included, never optional |
Perspective-expanding roles (add at least 2)
| Role | What they generate | Ideal agent type |
|---|---|---|
| Future Self | 6/12/24-month horizon ideas; what smart teams converge on; leapfrog moves | claude -p --model opus |
| Outsider / Cultural Stranger | Assumptions the team never questioned; non-default user perspectives | External LLM |
| Customer Whisperer | Emotional arc the user goes through; delight moments; trust signals | External LLM |
| Devil's Advocate | The honest thing nobody wants to say; core assumption challenges | Any model with a blunt mandate |
Default panel for full-diversity mode: all 6 core + Executioner + Future Self + Outsider.
Default panel for single-agent mode: Strategist, Operator, Trickster, Skeptic, Executioner, Future Self — as subagents with strongly differentiated tones.
The Executioner is always included. A brainstorm without a kill test is a yes-machine.
4. Fan-out — launch all roles in parallel
Dispatch all roles simultaneously in a single turn. Do not wait for one to finish before launching the next.
Prompt template for every role
Every role gets the seed brief (from step 1) plus a role-specific lens:
=== WIDE-OPEN BRAINSTORM ===
PRODUCT / IDEA: [from seed]
AUDIENCE: [who it is for]
CORE OUTCOME: [what "success" means to the user]
EMOTIONAL FLAVOR: [desired brand/experience tone]
PERMISSION: Be practical, silly, weird, and ambitious. All altitudes welcome.
YOUR ROLE: [role name]
YOUR MANDATE: [role-specific mandate — see below]
YOUR TONE: [e.g., "wide-open strategist" / "whimsical inventor" / "dry skeptic"]
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Think across at least three altitudes:
- 10,000 feet: goals, strategy, direction, what matters and why
- 1,000 feet: projects, workstreams, groupings, operational patterns
- Ground level: exact items, statuses, actions, next clicks
2. Generate ideas across your assigned lens. Don't self-censor.
3. For whimsical ideas: explain what the metaphor REVEALS, not just what it is.
4. For practical ideas: name the specific workflow it enables.
5. Include a time-horizon pass:
- 6 months: what would smart builders do once the rough edges are fixed?
- 12 months: what do teams converge on when the pattern is legible?
- 24 months: what does the mature version assume as table stakes?
- Leapfrog: what bypasses the expected roadmap and gets closer to THE FUTURE now?
6. Name your 3 strongest ideas. Good names make ideas sticky.
7. End with: "The thing most people miss about this: [one non-obvious insight]"
FORMAT: Flowing prose or numbered list, your choice. No hedging. No meta-commentary.
Role mandates (insert into template)
| Role | Mandate |
|---|---|
| Strategist | Identify the product's true north star, what the competitive alternatives get wrong, and the one insight that makes this genuinely different. Think like a founder writing a first-principles memo. |
| Operator | Map the real workflow: what does the user actually do, step by step, when this product is working? Find the five micro-decisions the product must make easier. |
| Cartographer | Design the views, maps, and grouping systems. How does the user see everything at once? How do they navigate without getting lost? What metaphor makes the product's structure legible? |
| Archivist | Design the memory and synthesis layer. How does the product get smarter over time? What does it remember, surface, and forget? How does the user recover when context is lost? |
| Trickster | Generate whimsical reframes and strange metaphors. What if this product were a ship's bridge? A garden? A detective's evidence board? A jazz session? Push until at least one idea feels genuinely surprising. |
| Skeptic | Be the voice of restraint. What will users ignore? What adds noise without signal? What is the most common mistake products like this make? What should NOT be built? |
| Future Self | Assume it is now [18 months from today]. The category has matured. What do all the good versions of this product have in common? What leapfrog move gets there before the obvious roadmap does? |
| Outsider | Approach this product as someone who doesn't share any of the builder's assumptions. What is confusing about the framing? What assumption is being treated as obvious that isn't? |
| Customer Whisperer | Map the user's emotional arc: what do they feel when they discover this, when it first works, when it fails, when it becomes a habit? Where does delight live? Where does trust get built or broken? |
| Devil's Advocate | Make the strongest honest case against the core premise. What if the fundamental assumption is wrong? What would make this irrelevant? |
| Executioner | Your job is not to find flaws — it is to argue that this idea should be abandoned entirely. Find the single strongest reason it should never be built: wrong timing, already exists and is better, fundamental audience mismatch, wrong founder for this problem, market that won't pay, regulatory trap, or premise that sounds good but collapses on first contact with reality. You are not here to balance — you are here to kill the idea if it deserves killing. If you cannot find a compelling reason to kill it, say so explicitly: "This idea survived the kill test. Here's why." That verdict is a green light. |
Preferred model assignment
| Role | Preferred model |
|---|---|
| Strategist | Code-aware subagent with local file access |
| Operator | Code-aware subagent |
| Cartographer | claude -p --model opus |
| Archivist | claude -p |
| Trickster | claude -p --model haiku |
| Skeptic | claude -p --model sonnet |
| Future Self | claude -p --model opus |
| Outsider | claude -p |
| Customer Whisperer | claude -p --model sonnet |
| Devil's Advocate | claude -p --model sonnet |
| Executioner | claude -p --model opus with the explicit kill-test mandate |
5. Force altitude switching (apply during synthesis)
Ensure the combined output covers all three levels:
- 10,000 feet: goals, campaigns, strategy, health, drift, priorities.
- 1,000 feet: projects, workstreams, branches, tickets, docs, grouped activity.
- Ground level: individual items, exact statuses, actions, recovery, tooltips, next clicks.
Look for interaction patterns that let the user smoothly zoom out, zoom in, and jump precisely. If any altitude is thin, ask the relevant subagent to extend their output there.
5.5. Time-horizon leapfrog pass (during synthesis)
After collecting role outputs, surface ideas from the future-self and leapfrog lens explicitly:
- 6 months: what would the smart, competent solution look like once the obvious rough edges are fixed?
- 12 months: what would smart teams converge on after the pattern becomes legible and the first wave of tooling exists?
- 24 months: what would the mature, deeply integrated version assume as table stakes?
- Leapfrog: what bypasses even those smart 6/12/24-month ideas and arrives closer to THE FUTURE now?
For each horizon, distinguish:
- predictable improvements smart people will independently invent;
- compounding advantages that become possible only after the system has memory, usage data, trust, integrations, or a stronger conceptual model;
- assumptions that stop mattering because the future version reframes the problem;
- the weird, brave move that feels premature today but may become obvious later.
Do not treat the far future as sci-fi garnish. Use it to identify which near-term choices keep optionality open, which ideas are local maxima, and which design thesis can leapfrog the expected market path.
6. Optional cross-pollination round
After collecting first-round outputs, run a second round when:
- Roles produced surprisingly different framings
- One role surfaced something the others completely missed
- The synthesis feels too neat — good tension should feel messy
Send each agent a digest of what the other roles found, then ask:
- What from the other perspectives is WRONG or overblown — why?
- What did you miss in the first round that now seems important?
- What combination of ideas creates something the others didn't see?
7. Distill hard — synthesize across all outputs
Separate ideas into:
- practical now ideas;
- high-leverage product concepts;
- LLM-backed or automation-heavy ideas;
- 6/12/24-month horizon ideas;
- leapfrog-to-THE-FUTURE ideas that make expected solutions feel incremental;
- whimsical metaphors that clarify state;
- delightful but optional flourishes;
- ideas to avoid because they add noise.
Note where multiple roles independently converged on the same idea — that convergence is a signal.
Name the strongest concepts. Good names make ideas reusable and spreadable.
7.5. The Kill Test — process the Executioner's verdict
Treat the Executioner's output separately from the other roles.
If the Executioner could not find a compelling reason to kill the idea:
- Note this explicitly in the synthesis: "The idea survived the kill test."
- This is a genuine positive signal — the Executioner tried and couldn't make the case.
- Mention what the Executioner probed and why it didn't hold.
If the Executioner found a compelling reason to kill the idea:
- Do not bury it. Surface it prominently in the final artifact.
- State whether the other roles' outputs change in light of this finding.
- Give the user a clear "build or don't build" frame: if this kill argument is correct, what would have to be true to proceed anyway?
- This is not a reason to suppress the brainstorm output — the ideas still have value even if the premise needs rethinking. But the kill argument gets its own named section.
8. Produce the final artifact
Use this structure unless the user requested another format:
- North Star / product thesis
- What existing tools or current approaches miss
- Big ideas from practical to wild
- Views and organizing metaphors
- Detection/status/intelligence ideas
- Actions and workflows
- LLM-backed synthesis or automation ideas
- Whimsical delight ideas
- Top differentiated ideas (named and defined)
- Time horizons: 6 months, 12 months, 24 months
- Leapfrog ideas: what gets to THE FUTURE sooner
- What to build first vs. what to dream about
- Where roles converged (highest-signal ideas)
- Kill test verdict — did the idea survive? If not, what's the strongest argument against, and what would have to be true to proceed anyway?
- Reformulated reusable prompt
Keep the final answer crisp enough to read, but rich enough to preserve the spark.
Optional file artifact
When the user asks to save the brainstorm, create a dated Markdown file in the most relevant project docs folder or durable notes location. Include:
- date and context;
- reformulated prompt;
- synthesized output;
- raw or distilled notes from model participants;
- follow-up planning prompt.
Prefer project-local docs/ for project-specific brainstorms. Prefer the user's durable notes location for cross-project life/work strategy.
Reusable prompt template
Load references/wide-open-brainstorm-prompt.md when a full prompt template is useful.