brainstorming

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.

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 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.

Anti-Pattern: "This Is Too Simple To Need A Design"

Every project goes through this process. A todo list, a single-function utility, a config change — all of them. "Simple" projects are where unexamined assumptions cause the most wasted work. The design can be short (a few sentences for truly simple projects), but you MUST present it and get approval.

Checklist

You MUST complete each of these items in order:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
2. Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
3. Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
4. Present design — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
5. Write design doc — save to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md and commit
6. Transition to implementation — invoke writing-plans skill to create implementation plan

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
• Only one question per message
• Focus on: purpose, constraints, success criteria

Exploring approaches:

• Propose 2-3 different approaches with trade-offs
• Lead with your recommended option and explain why

Presenting the design:

• Present in sections scaled to complexity
• Ask after each section whether it looks right
• Cover: architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing

After the Design

Documentation:

• Write the validated design to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
• Commit the design document to git

Implementation:

• Invoke the writing-plans skill to create a detailed implementation plan
• Do NOT invoke any other skill. writing-plans is the next step.

Key Principles

• One question at a time — Don't overwhelm with multiple questions
• Multiple choice preferred — Easier to answer than open-ended
• YAGNI ruthlessly — Remove unnecessary features from all designs
• Explore alternatives — Always propose 2-3 approaches before settling
• Incremental validation — Present design, get approval before moving on
• Be flexible — Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense

The terminal state is invoking writing-plans.

Do NOT invoke any implementation skill directly after brainstorming. The ONLY next step is writing-plans.