Spec Driven Brainstorming

Discovering Problems

Transform vague business problems into structured, AI-consumable discovery documents through guided interactive questioning.

Output: devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/BRAINSTORM-{NNN}-{short-name}.brainstorm.md Feeds Into: /ideate command for formal requirements generation

Execution Model

This skill expands inline. After invocation, execute Phase 00 Initialization immediately. Do not wait passively, ask permission, or offer execution options.

Self-Check (if ANY box is true = VIOLATION):

• Stopping to ask about token budget
• Stopping to offer execution options
• Waiting passively for user to say "go"
• Asking "should I execute this?"
• Skipping a phase because it "seems simple"

IF any box checked: EXECUTION MODEL VIOLATION. Go directly to Phase 00 Initialization now.

Anti-Skip Enforcement Contract

This skill enforces 4 independent anti-skip layers. ALL FOUR must fail for a step to be skipped:

1. Per-phase reference loading - Each phase loads its reference file fresh via Read(). NOT consolidated. Prevents "already covered" rationalization.
2. Checkpoint-based state tracking - Phase completion verified by checking checkpoint JSON data keys and current_phase field.
3. Artifact verification - Checkpoint JSON existence checked via Glob(), output document verified on disk.
4. Step registry with question completion - Each phase has minimum question counts and required data keys. Phase exit criteria checked before proceeding.

Execute-Verify-Gate Pattern: Every mandatory step in every phase file has three parts:

• EXECUTE: The exact AskUserQuestion call, Task call, or Write call to perform
• VERIFY: How to confirm the action happened (user response non-empty, file exists, data key populated)
• RECORD: Update checkpoint JSON with captured data; increment question counter

Token Optimization Bias is PROHIBITED. Do not skip, compress, or shortcut any step. Every phase step exists because a previous failure proved it necessary.

Parameter Extraction

Extract from conversation context:

Phase 00: Initialization [INLINE - Bootstraps State]

This phase runs inline because it creates the state that all other phases depend on.

Step 0.1: Parse Arguments

IF conversation contains "--resume BRAINSTORM-":
  Extract BRAINSTORM_ID from argument
  MODE = "resume"
ELSE IF conversation contains topic text after /brainstorm:
  TOPIC = extracted text
  MODE = "new"
ELSE:
  MODE = "new"
  TOPIC = null

Step 0.2: Handle Resume Mode

IF MODE == "resume":
  checkpoint_path = "devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/${BRAINSTORM_ID}.checkpoint.json"
  Glob(pattern=checkpoint_path)

  IF found:
    Read(file_path=checkpoint_path)
    Restore session state from checkpoint
    CURRENT_PHASE = checkpoint.progress.current_phase
    Display: "Resuming ${BRAINSTORM_ID} from Phase ${CURRENT_PHASE}"
    GOTO Phase Orchestration Loop at CURRENT_PHASE
  ELSE:
    Display: "No checkpoint found for ${BRAINSTORM_ID}."
    AskUserQuestion:
      Question: "No checkpoint found. What would you like to do?"
      Header: "Resume"
      Options:
        - label: "Start a new brainstorm"
          description: "Begin fresh session"
        - label: "Check for completed document"
          description: "Look for existing brainstorm output"
    IF "Start new": MODE = "new", continue below
    IF "Check completed": Glob for existing .brainstorm.md files, display results

Step 0.3: Generate Brainstorm ID (New Session)

IF MODE == "new":
  # Scan for highest existing ID
  Glob(pattern="devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/BRAINSTORM-*.brainstorm.md")
  Glob(pattern="devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/BRAINSTORM-*.checkpoint.json")

  # Extract highest NNN, increment
  BRAINSTORM_ID = "BRAINSTORM-{NNN+1}" (zero-padded to 3 digits minimum)

  # Ensure output directory exists
  Glob(pattern="devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/.gitkeep")
  IF not found: Create directory structure

Step 0.4: Create Initial Checkpoint

checkpoint = {
  "checkpoint_version": "1.0",
  "brainstorm_id": BRAINSTORM_ID,
  "session_number": 1,
  "created_at": "current timestamp",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "progress": {
    "current_phase": 0,
    "phases_completed": [],
    "completion_percentage": 0
  },
  "completed_outputs": {},
  "topic": TOPIC
}

Write(file_path="devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/${BRAINSTORM_ID}.checkpoint.json", content=checkpoint)

VERIFY: Glob(pattern="devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/${BRAINSTORM_ID}.checkpoint.json") IF not found: HALT -- "Initial checkpoint was NOT created."

Step 0.5: Display Session Banner

Display:
"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  DevForgeAI Discovery Session
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Session: ${BRAINSTORM_ID}
Mode: New Discovery
Topic: ${TOPIC || 'To be discovered in Phase 1'}

Phases: 7 (Stakeholders > Problem > Opportunities > Constraints > Hypotheses > Priorities > Synthesis)
Estimated Duration: 20-45 minutes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"

Set CURRENT_PHASE = 1.

Phase Orchestration Loop

FOR phase_num in range(CURRENT_PHASE, 8):  # Phases 01-07

    1. LOAD: Read(file_path=".claude/skills/spec-driven-brainstorming/phases/{phase_files[phase_num]}")
       Load the phase file FRESH. Do NOT rely on memory of previous reads.

    2. REFERENCE: Read the phase's reference file as specified in the phase Contract section.
       Each phase references a file in .claude/skills/spec-driven-brainstorming/references/.

    3. EXECUTE: Follow EVERY step in the phase file using EXECUTE-VERIFY-RECORD triplets.
       - Each step's EXECUTE tells you exactly what AskUserQuestion to call
       - Each step's VERIFY tells you how to confirm the data was captured
       - Each step's RECORD tells you how to update the checkpoint

    4. EXIT CRITERIA: Verify ALL phase exit criteria are met before proceeding.
       IF any required data key is null or empty: HALT.

    5. CHECKPOINT: Update checkpoint JSON with phase completion.
       Write updated checkpoint to disk.

    6. CONTEXT CHECK: If estimated context > 70%, offer save-and-resume via AskUserQuestion.
       IF user chooses "Save and resume later":
         Write final checkpoint, display resume command, EXIT skill.

Phase Table

Required Subagents

State Persistence

• Checkpoint: devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/${BRAINSTORM_ID}.checkpoint.json
• Output: devforgeai/specs/brainstorms/${BRAINSTORM_ID}-${short_name}.brainstorm.md
• Templates: .claude/skills/spec-driven-brainstorming/assets/templates/ (loaded via Read, not duplicated)

Workflow Completion Validation

IF phases_completed < 7: HALT "WORKFLOW INCOMPLETE - {completed_count}/7 phases"
IF output_file not on disk (Glob returns empty): HALT "Output document not generated"
IF checkpoint still exists: Delete checkpoint (session complete)

Error Handling

Load error recovery patterns from: .claude/skills/spec-driven-brainstorming/references/error-handling.md

Graceful Degradation Priority:

1. User answers (highest - never lose)
2. Problem statement
3. Stakeholder map
4. Constraints
5. Priorities
6. Market research (lowest - can skip)

Success Criteria

• All 7 phases executed (no skipping)
• Output document exists on disk with all sections
• User validated output accuracy
• Checkpoint deleted after successful completion
• Next steps displayed to user