Brainstorming

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs through natural collaborative dialogue.

Start by understanding the current project context, then ask questions one at a time to refine the idea. Once you understand what you're building, present the design and get user approval.

Anti-Pattern: "This Is Too Simple To Need A Design"

Every project goes through this process. A todo list, a single-function utility, a config change — all of them. "Simple" projects are where unexamined assumptions cause the most wasted work. The design can be short (a few sentences for truly simple projects), but you MUST present it and get approval.

Checklist

You MUST complete these steps in order:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
2. Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
3. Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
4. Present design — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
5. Write design doc — save to .report/{FEATURE}/brainstorms/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md and commit
6. Spec self-review — quick inline check for placeholders, contradictions, ambiguity, scope
7. User reviews written spec — ask user to review the spec file before proceeding
8. Transition to implementation — invoke /plan:team or proceed to /cook:team

Process Flow

Explore project context
        ↓
Ask clarifying questions (one at a time)
        ↓
Propose 2-3 approaches (with trade-offs)
        ↓
Present design (get approval after each section)
        ↓
User approves? → YES → Write design doc
                ↓ NO → Revise design
Write design doc
        ↓
Spec self-review (fix inline)
        ↓
User reviews spec?
        ↓ YES → Proceed to implementation
        ↓ NO → Make changes → Re-review

The Process

Understanding the idea:

• Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
• Before asking detailed questions, assess scope: if the request describes multiple independent subsystems, flag this immediately. Don't spend questions refining details of a project that needs to be decomposed first.
• If the project is too large for a single spec, help the user decompose into sub-projects: what are the independent pieces, how do they relate, what order should they be built?
• For appropriately-scoped projects, ask questions one at a time to refine the idea
• Prefer multiple choice questions when possible, but open-ended is fine too
• Only one question per message - if a topic needs more exploration, break it into multiple questions
• Focus on understanding: purpose, constraints, success criteria

Exploring approaches:

• Propose 2-3 different approaches with trade-offs
• Present options conversationally with your recommendation and reasoning
• Lead with your recommended option and explain why

Presenting the design:

• Once you believe you understand what you're building, present the design
• Scale each section to its complexity: a few sentences if straightforward, up to 200-300 words if nuanced
• Ask after each section whether it looks right so far
• Cover: architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing
• Be ready to go back and clarify if something doesn't make sense

Design for isolation and clarity:

• Break the system into smaller units that each have one clear purpose
• Communicate through well-defined interfaces
• Each unit can be understood and tested independently
• For each unit, answer: what does it do, how do you use it, and what does it depend on?

Working in existing codebases:

• Explore the current structure before proposing changes. Follow existing patterns.
• Where existing code has problems that affect the work, include targeted improvements as part of the design
• Don't propose unrelated refactoring. Stay focused on what serves the current goal.

After the Design

Documentation:

• Write the validated design to .report/{FEATURE}/brainstorms/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
• Commit the design document to git

Spec Self-Review:

After writing the spec document, look at it with fresh eyes:

1. Placeholder scan: Any "TBD", "TODO", incomplete sections, or vague requirements? Fix them.
2. Internal consistency: Do any sections contradict each other? Does the architecture match the feature descriptions?
3. Scope check: Is this focused enough for a single implementation plan, or does it need decomposition?
4. Ambiguity check: Could any requirement be interpreted two different ways? If so, pick one and make it explicit.

Fix any issues inline. No need to re-review — just fix and move on.

User Review Gate:

After the spec review loop passes, ask the user to review the written spec before proceeding:

"Spec written and committed to <path>. Please review it and let me know if you want to make any changes before we start writing out the implementation plan."

Wait for the user's response. If they request changes, make them and re-run the spec review loop. Only proceed once the user approves.

Implementation:

• Proceed to /plan:team to create implementation plan
• Or proceed to /cook:team to build directly
• Do NOT invoke any implementation skill directly

Key Principles

• One question at a time - Don't overwhelm with multiple questions
• Multiple choice preferred - Easier to answer than open-ended when possible
• YAGNI ruthlessly - Remove unnecessary features from all designs
• Explore alternatives - Always propose 2-3 approaches before settling
• Incremental validation - Present design, get approval before moving on
• Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense

HARD-GATE Enforcement

This skill creates a HARD-GATE that blocks ALL implementation actions:

Blocked actions:

• Invoking any implementation skill
• Writing code
• Scaffolding projects
• Modifying behavior
• Creating files that implement functionality

Unblocked actions:

• Asking clarifying questions
• Presenting designs
• Writing design documents
• Research and exploration
• Getting user approval

Gate release: The HARD-GATE is released ONLY when:

1. Design is presented to the user
2. User explicitly approves the design
3. Design document is committed to git