Brainstorm

brainstorm

Three reviewers walk into a question. Each comes back with a different list. The synthesizer ranks them.

This skill wraps jutsu swarm brainstorm. Free-form prompt input, ranked-list output. Use it before decide (you don't know what to record yet) or before refactor-plan (you don't know which approach to plan against yet).

How agents collaborate

Severity vocab differs from pr-review/doc-review. Brainstorm options use:

• recommended — high-confidence "this is what I'd do"
• alternative — also good, different tradeoff profile
• risky — works but with caveats
• speculative — wild idea worth recording, not yet defensible

The synthesizer ranks options across reviewers, groups similar approaches, and surfaces "cross-cuts" — themes that appeared in multiple options.

Layout (rich)

brainstorm/
├── SKILL.md
├── skill.yaml
├── scripts/
│   └── run.sh
├── prompts/
│   ├── claude.md       long-horizon lens
│   ├── codex.md        code-pattern lens
│   ├── antigravity.md       cross-domain lens
│   ├── synthesizer.md  ranked-list assembler
│   └── debate.md       Pass-2 critique template
└── references/
    ├── lens-design.md       why each lens is what it is
    └── chaining.md          how brainstorm composes with decide / refactor-plan

First-run consent

Brainstorm sends the user prompt to remote model providers. Per-repo consent required before the first run:

jutsu swarm brainstorm --grant-consent

This writes allow-multi-model: true to .kaijutsu/brainstorm.yaml. Subsequent runs work non-interactively.

When to invoke

# Direct
jutsu swarm brainstorm "how do I rate-limit my API endpoints?"

# Via skill wrapper
~/.claude/skills/brainstorm/scripts/run.sh "what's the right cache invalidation strategy?"

# High-stakes question — use --full for a debate round
jutsu swarm brainstorm "should we migrate from Postgres to CockroachDB?" --full --strict

# Iterate cheap on the synth prompt
jutsu swarm brainstorm --replay <key>

Reading the output

Same structure as pr-review/doc-review but the disagreement table shows each reviewer's options as 1/N rows by design (different lenses produce different options — that's the point). The synthesis sections matter most:

## Recommended options
- **Redis sliding-window** (proposed by claude, codex) — proven pattern, ...
- **Token bucket per-API-key** (codex) — battle-tested, library exists ...

## Alternatives worth considering
- **CRDT-based limiter** (antigravity, speculative→alternative after debate) — ...

## Speculative
- **Probabilistic admission control** (antigravity) — paper-tier idea, ...

## Cross-cuts
- All three reviewers mentioned graceful degradation under burst.
- Both claude + codex emphasized the importance of per-key limits.

The "Cross-cuts" section is the highest-leverage signal — themes that emerged from multiple lenses are usually worth designing for, even if no single option won.

Composes

This skill chains naturally:

1. brainstorm → pick a recommended option
2. decide → record the choice as an ADR (Step 5 multi-agent review on the decision record uses doc-review, not brainstorm)
3. refactor-plan (Stage 6) OR spec-driven-development → execute the chosen option

See references/chaining.md for example workflows.

Hard rules

• Never confuse with doc-review. brainstorm produces NEW options. doc-review reviews EXISTING markdown. Different inputs, different outputs.
• Don't run brainstorm to "review" something. That's doc-review's job.
• Cite reviewer in synthesis. When picking an option, note which lens produced it — useful when you later want to re-examine the assumption.

When NOT to use

• You already know the answer — skip to decide or implementation.
• Question requires tools (running queries, reading specific files) — brainstorm is prompt-only.
• Question is "review my X" — that's doc-review or pr-review.

Cost

Default --max-cost $1.00. With 3 agents in --quick mode, typical brainstorm runs ~$0.05–0.20. --full (with debate) doubles that. --strict adds another synthesis call.