Idea Honing

Idea Honing Skill

Purpose

Clarify and refine feature ideas through structured questioning. This process helps uncover ambiguities, edge cases, and design considerations before writing the formal concept document.

When to Use

• User has a rough feature idea but it's not fully formed
• Before writing a concept document
• When a feature idea needs more clarity
• To explore design space and tradeoffs

Prerequisites

• User has described a rough feature idea
• Feature number and name have been determined (or will be determined)

Procedure

1. Determine Feature Number and Name

If not already determined:

ls -1d $FOREST_ROOT/docs/features/[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]-* 2>/dev/null | tail -1

Work with user to choose the next number and a descriptive name.

2. Create Planning Directory

mkdir -p $FOREST_ROOT/planning/NNNN-feature-name

3. Initialize Idea Honing Document

cat > $FOREST_ROOT/planning/NNNN-feature-name/idea-honing.md << 'EOF'
# Idea Honing: Feature Name

## Initial Idea

[User's rough description of the feature]

## Questions & Answers

EOF

4. Generate Initial Questions

Based on the user's rough idea, identify ambiguities and generate questions about:

• Use cases and user workflows
• Scope and boundaries
• Integration points
• Edge cases
• Tradeoffs and constraints
• Success criteria

Create a list of questions to explore.

5. Ask Questions ONE AT A TIME

CRITICAL: Only ask ONE question at a time.

For each question:

1. Ask the question clearly
2. Wait for the user's answer
3. Discuss and refine the answer if needed
4. Once satisfied, write the Q&A to the document
5. If new ambiguity emerges, add it to your question list
6. Move to the next question

6. Update Document After Each Q&A

After each question is answered, append to the document:

cat >> $FOREST_ROOT/planning/NNNN-feature-name/idea-honing.md << 'EOF'

### Q: [Question text]

**A**: [Answer text]

EOF

7. Evolve the Process

As you work through questions:

• New ambiguities may emerge - add them as new questions
• Some questions may become irrelevant - skip them
• The process builds on itself organically

If a question is about existing code behavior (e.g., "How does X work today?"):

• Note it as needing research
• Continue with other questions
• These will be addressed in follow-up research

8. Conclude When Clear

When the feature idea is sufficiently clear:

• Summarize key insights
• Confirm with user that they're ready to write the concept
• The idea-honing document remains in planning/ for reference

Validation

Check the idea-honing document:

# Verify document exists
ls $FOREST_ROOT/planning/NNNN-feature-name/idea-honing.md

# Review content
cat $FOREST_ROOT/planning/NNNN-feature-name/idea-honing.md

Common Issues

Asking multiple questions at once: Only ask ONE question at a time. This keeps focus and allows deeper exploration.

Not recording answers: Update the document after EACH question is answered, not in batches.

Stopping too early: Continue until the user feels confident about the feature scope and approach.

Next Steps

After idea honing:

1. Use propose-feature-concept skill to write the formal concept
2. Reference the idea-honing document when writing the concept
3. The Q&A provides material for the concept's narrative