| name | brainstorming |
| description | Turn a vague request into an agreed design before any code is written. HARD GATE — produce a design and get explicit approval first; do not implement, scaffold, or edit until the user approves. Use whenever a request is non-trivial or under-specified. |
| user-invocable | true |
Brainstorming
Do NOT write code, scaffold a project, or edit files during this skill. The only output is an agreed design. Implementation begins only after the user explicitly approves.
Process
- Restate the problem in one paragraph. Surface hidden assumptions and name what's genuinely ambiguous.
- Challenge the premise. Is this the right problem? What happens if we do nothing? What existing code already partly solves it?
- Offer 2-3 distinct approaches — at minimum a minimal-viable and an ideal-architecture — each with effort, risk, and what it reuses.
- Recommend one with a one-line reason.
- Get explicit approval before proceeding. If the user disagrees with a premise, revise and loop.
Why the gate
Code written before the problem is understood is the most expensive code there is. The forcing questions are the value, not friction. A wrong architecture chosen in five minutes costs days to unwind.
Hand-off
On approval, the design becomes the plan for subagent-driven-development: each agreed piece of work becomes a ledger task.
