Idea Genie

Idea Genie

Turn an open-ended question into a small, evidenced opportunity portfolio. This skill explores; it does not select work, create beads, or write Discovery's BDD intent packet.

Constraints

• Keep this lane exploratory because discovery owns selection, BDD shaping, and tracker persistence.
• Cite repository or executable evidence for observations to prevent assumptions from masquerading as facts.
• Stop on novelty saturation because fixed idea quotas manufacture unsupported work.

Workflow

1. State the question, constraints, non-goals, and evidence sources. Use research when the repository facts are not already available.
2. Record observations as claims with repository or executable evidence. Put unverified beliefs in assumptions; never blend them into observations.
3. Propose candidate mechanisms. Give every candidate its own evidence, overlap result against live skills, CLI capabilities, and tracked work, plus one Given/When/Then scenario.
4. Run another novelty pass. Merge equivalents and discard unsupported ideas. Stop when the pass yields zero materially new candidates, not when an arbitrary count is reached.
5. Write idea-portfolio.v1, run scripts/validate-output.sh, and hand the artifact to discovery. Discovery alone shapes and persists executable BDD intent.

If every candidate overlaps existing work or lacks support, emit status: no-new-work, an empty candidate list, and observations showing why. An honest empty portfolio is a successful result.

Output Specification

• Artifact directory: .agents/ideas/<run-id>/
• Filename convention: idea-portfolio.json
• Format: idea-portfolio.v1 JSON with the schema fields below.
• Validation command: skills/idea-genie/scripts/validate-output.sh <portfolio.json>
• Downstream handoff: pass the validated artifact path to discovery; only discovery shapes and persists executable BDD intent.

Required fields are schema_version, status, observations, assumptions, candidates, and termination. Candidate portfolios require cited evidence, an explicit overlaps array, and a complete scenario. Termination records the reason and novel_candidates_last_pass: 0.

The validator is the machine boundary:

skills/idea-genie/scripts/validate-output.sh <portfolio.json>

Executable behavior: references/idea-genie.feature.

Quality

• Every observation has a nonempty evidence pointer and assumptions remain explicitly separate.
• Every candidate carries overlap results and a complete Given/When/Then scenario, or the artifact honestly reports no-new-work.
• The named validator passes before the artifact path is handed to discovery.