Brainstorm

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Overview

Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs through natural collaborative dialogue.

Start by understanding the current project context, then ask questions one at a time to refine the idea. Once you understand what you're building, present the design in small sections (200-300 words), checking after each section whether it looks right so far.

You can use the deep-research skill to search the web

The Process

Understanding the idea:

• Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
• Ask questions one at a time to refine the idea
• Prefer multiple choice questions when possible, but open-ended is fine too
• Only one question per message - if a topic needs more exploration, break it into multiple questions
• Focus on understanding: purpose, constraints, success criteria

Exploring approaches:

• Propose 2-3 different approaches with trade-offs
• Present options conversationally with your recommendation and reasoning
• Lead with your recommended option and explain why

Presenting the design:

• Once you believe you understand what you're building, present the design
• Break it into sections of 200-300 words
• Ask after each section whether it looks right so far
• Cover: architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing
• Be ready to go back and clarify if something doesn't make sense

After the Design

Documentation:

• Use the Skill(issues) to write the validated design to ./issues/<path-to-issue>/design.md

• Ask: "Want to create a plan or begin implementation?"

• Create detailed implementation plan in the same issue folder

Key Principles

• Prefer: sketch shape → confirm → implement. Get agreement on structure before details.

• For quick comprehension you must present code changes outside-in, showing new code / code changes in context with surrounding existing code: You need to show me the code as a 'sketch' of the 'shape' of the code whilst being brief.

What to include:

• The high level 'story' of function calls and high-level control flow.
• Show the flow of the code as if I was reading the usages, so I can understand the structure that a first time reader of the code would see. But omit the technical details from the code, it's a sketch.
• I care about the functions (including signatures, put them as comments above the function usages). Use TypeScript imports at the top to show file paths, file status, and function status.
• Relevant code context around the changes so I can understand how our changes and additions fit into the existing code

What not to include:

• Internal implementation details that are obvious, by default omit the code inside of functions themselves unless it's important

• Too much information - you need to maximize comprehension so I can review the plan quickly

• Implementation: the "how" (often skippable unless important)

• One question at a time - Don't overwhelm with multiple questions

• Multiple choice preferred - Easier to answer than open-ended when possible

• YAGNI ruthlessly - Remove unnecessary features from all designs

• Explore alternatives - Always propose 2-3 approaches before settling

• Incremental validation - Present design in sections, validate each

• Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense

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