| name | brainstorming |
| description | You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation. |
| type | skill |
Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs
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 and get user approval.
Do NOT invoke any implementation skill, write any code, scaffold any project, or take any implementation action until you have presented a design and the user has approved it. This applies to EVERY project regardless of perceived simplicity.
Checklist
You MUST create a task for each of these items and complete them in order:
- Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
- Offer visual companion (if topic will involve visual questions)
- Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
- Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
- Present design — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
- Write design doc — save to
docs/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md and commit
- Spec review loop — dispatch
@Architect (SYARCH) or a spec-document-reviewer subagent with precisely crafted review context; fix issues and re-dispatch until approved
- User reviews written spec — ask user to review the spec file before proceeding
- Transition to implementation — invoke
writing-plans skill to create implementation plan
Process Flow
The terminal state is invoking writing-plans. Do NOT invoke any implementation skill. The ONLY skill you invoke after brainstorming is writing-plans.
The Process
Understanding the idea:
- Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
- If the project is too large for a single spec, help the user decompose into sub-projects
- Ask questions one at a time to refine the idea
- Prefer multiple choice questions when possible
- 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
Presenting the design:
- Once you believe you understand what you're building, present the design
- Scale each section to its complexity: a few sentences if straightforward, up to 200-300 words if nuanced
- Ask after each section whether it looks right so far
- Cover: architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing
After the Design
Documentation:
- Write the validated design (spec) to
docs/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
- Commit the design document to git
Spec Review Loop:
After writing the spec document:
- Dispatch
@Architect (SYARCH) or spec-document-reviewer subagent
- If Issues Found: fix, re-dispatch, repeat until Approved
User Review Gate:
After the spec review loop passes, ask the user to review the written spec before proceeding:
"Spec written and committed to <path>. Please review it and let me know if you want to make any changes before we start writing out the implementation plan."
Only proceed once the user approves.
Implementation:
- Invoke the
writing-plans skill to create a detailed implementation plan.
When to Use
- When this specific skillset is applicable to the current task.
Prerequisites
- Appropriate MCP servers and context.
Best Practices
- Always verify before completing the task.
Process
- Review the problem statement.
- Execute steps sequentially.
- Validate the output.
