Design It Twice

/design-it-twice

Pattern inspired by mattpocock/skills ("design-it-twice"). Adapted to this ecosystem's planning-skill chain (handoff from /architecture-fit, output as evidence for /decide).

You are the orchestrator for a parallel-divergent design exploration. The deliverable is a comparative-design document at reports/design-it-twice/scan-<TS>/<fork-slug>.md that summarizes 3 deliberately divergent designs, names where they agreed, names where they diverged, and recommends an axis with a stated trade.

You do NOT author the ADR — that's /decide. You do NOT implement the design — that's the planning chain after the ADR lands.

How success is judged

• Three designs exist under reports/design-it-twice/scan-<TS>/, each committed hard to a genuinely different binding constraint — three near-identical "balanced" designs is a failed run.
• The comparative document at <fork-slug>.md separates where the designs agreed (real constraints) from where they diverged (the actual design space), and recommends an axis with the trade named.
• The chosen axes are stated and justified in the Stage 1 section.
• No ADR authored, nothing written outside the scan dir — the handoff is /decide <slug> with this analysis as evidence. Write toward these gates from Stage 0.

Core beliefs

1. Divergence is the point. Each design must commit hard to its binding constraint. A "balanced" design from each agent defeats the purpose — you want the pure form of each axis so the trade is visible. Soft-pedaling the constraint produces three near-identical designs and zero signal.
2. Synthesis > individual design. No single design is "the answer". The output is the comparative analysis: where they agreed (the real constraints — the fork is not about these), where they diverged (the design space — the fork is about these), and a recommendation with the trade named.
3. Cheap to fan out, expensive to redo. This skill exists because parallel design exploration costs ~3 sub-agent runs and ~30 min of orchestrator time, while a wrong design choice costs weeks of rework. Don't use it for trivial forks. Do use it when "we'll find out if this was right by rewriting it later."
4. Judgment-tier sub-agents, not cheap scouts. The fan-out uses the Agent tool with subagent_type: general-purpose (Sonnet- tier) — design work needs judgment, not read-and-classify. Do not use dispatch_scout_cheap.sh for these designers; that wrapper is for read-only classification fan-out.

Scope (this skill itself)

• Project root: this worktree's root.
• Read: the fork description (from stdin or follow-up), any plan the fork came from, CONTEXT.md, .claude/docs/canonical-patterns.md, .claude/docs/architectural-smells.md, and ADRs whose applies_to: overlaps the fork's subsystem.
• Write: ONLY under reports/design-it-twice/scan-<TS>/ (3 design files + 1 comparative analysis).
• MAY invoke: Agent tool with subagent_type: general-purpose, 3 in parallel for the design fan-out.

Pipeline

Stage 0 — Confirm the fork is well-defined

Before spending sub-agent time, the orchestrator must have:

1. A 1-paragraph fork description (what's being decided).
2. The constraints in tension (what makes it a real fork — e.g. "easy to learn vs covers all cases", "throughput vs latency", "build now vs buy time").
3. 2+ defensible alternatives (named, not vague).

If any of those are missing, abort and ask the user to clarify. Don't fan out 3 designers against a vague prompt — they'll diverge on interpretation of the prompt, not on the design axis.

TS="$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
FORK_SLUG="<arg>"
SCAN_DIR="reports/design-it-twice/scan-${TS}"
mkdir -p "${SCAN_DIR}"

Stage 1 — Pick the divergence axes

Identify 3 axes that capture the real tradeoff space for this specific fork. Some defaults to consider:

If none of these triplets fit, write your own three axes that capture the real tension. State the chosen axes (and why) in the report's Stage 1 section so the synthesis is grounded — a reader should be able to ask "would axis X have produced a different design?" and see why you didn't pick it.

Bad axes (defeat the purpose):

• "good design" / "great design" / "excellent design" — no divergence.
• Three variations of the same axis — no divergence.
• Axes the codebase already constrains (e.g. "use Django ORM" vs "use raw SQL" when the codebase has already standardized on Django) — not actually a fork.

Stage 2 — Fan out 3 designers

Spawn 3 sub-agents in parallel via the Agent tool. Each gets a self-contained brief (sub-agents don't inherit your context):

You are designer N of 3 for a parallel-divergent design exploration.
Your binding constraint: <axis name>. This means: <1-line interpretation
of the axis for this specific fork>.

The fork: <1-paragraph description>

Repo conventions to honor:
- /CONTEXT.md (domain glossary)
- .claude/docs/canonical-patterns.md (existing patterns)
- .claude/docs/architectural-smells.md (smells to avoid)
- ADRs under ai-docs/decisions/ that apply to <subsystem>

Your job: produce a 1-page design that commits HARD to your axis. Do
not produce a balanced compromise — that's not your job. Other agents
are exploring different axes; the orchestrator will synthesize.

Output: write your design to `${SCAN_DIR}/design-axisN-<axis-slug>.md`
with sections:

  ## Design
  <interfaces, data shapes, flow — concrete enough to implement>

  ## Strengths under this axis
  - 3 bullets — where committing to <axis> makes this design good

  ## Weaknesses where this axis hurts
  - 3 bullets — where committing to <axis> makes this design bad

  ## What you'd change if asked to soften the axis
  - 1-2 bullets — what trade you'd make to recover one of the weaknesses

Keep it ≤1 page. Concreteness > comprehensiveness.

Three sub-agents, three separate Agent calls in the same message (parallel). Wait for all three before proceeding.

Stage 3 — Synthesize

Read all 3 designs. Write the comparative analysis at ${SCAN_DIR}/<fork-slug>.md:

# Design It Twice: <fork-slug>

## Fork
<1-paragraph description, verbatim from Stage 0>

## Divergence axes
- **Axis 1: <name>** — what it optimizes for
- **Axis 2: <name>** — what it optimizes for
- **Axis 3: <name>** — what it optimizes for

(_Why these three: <1-2 sentences on why this triplet captures the
real tension; what other axes were considered and skipped._)

## Designs
- [Design 1: <axis 1 name>](design-axis1-<slug>.md)
- [Design 2: <axis 2 name>](design-axis2-<slug>.md)
- [Design 3: <axis 3 name>](design-axis3-<slug>.md)

## Where they agreed
_These are the real constraints. The fork is **not** about these — they
were going to land the same way regardless of axis._
- <bullet>
- <bullet>

## Where they diverged
_This is the design space. The fork **is** about these._
- <bullet — what each design did differently and why their axis forced
  it>

## Recommendation
**Axis: <chosen axis>**. <2-3 sentences on why this axis wins for this
specific fork in this specific codebase, and what trade you're
accepting.>

## Not chosen — why
- **<axis 2>**: <1 sentence on the deal-breaker for this fork>
- **<axis 3>**: <1 sentence on the deal-breaker for this fork>

## Hand-off
Next: `/decide <fork-slug>` with this analysis as the Context section
of the ADR. The Decision sentence writes itself from the
Recommendation above.

Stage 4 — Hand off

Report to the user in ≤8 lines:

• Path to the comparative analysis.
• The 3 axes explored.
• The recommended axis (1 sentence why).
• Top 2 agreements (the real constraints — not the fork).
• Top 2 disagreements (the design space — the fork).
• Recommended next command: /decide <fork-slug> with the analysis as evidence.

Non-goals

• Authoring the ADR (that's /decide).
• Implementing the design (that's the planning chain after /decide).
• More than 3 designers by default — fan out to 4-5 only if the user explicitly asks. Synthesis cost grows superlinearly; 3 is the sweet spot for "see the trade".
• Choosing axes that don't actually diverge (defeats the purpose).
• Using cheap-scout dispatch for the designers — design work is judgment, not read-and-classify. Use Agent with subagent_type: general-purpose.
• Writing the analysis without reading all 3 designs first. The synthesis IS the value; skipping it produces a document that just rehashes one design.

When things go sideways