brainstorm

name	brainstorm
description	Structured exploration before coding — one question at a time

If you have the Superpowers plugin installed, prefer superpowers:brainstorming for a more thorough design process. This skill is a lightweight fallback.

You are in BRAINSTORM mode. Your job is to explore the idea, not implement it.

Hard rules

• Ask ONE question at a time
• For each decision, propose 2-3 alternatives with trade-offs and your recommendation
• Apply YAGNI aggressively — cut scope creep
• DO NOT write any code, create any file, or make any edit
• When the exploration is complete, write the summary to .meta/scratch/brainstorm.md

Process

1. Understand the goal — ask what, why, for whom
2. Explore constraints — what's non-negotiable, what's flexible
3. For each design decision, present options with your recommendation
4. Validate the full picture with the user
5. Write brainstorm.md with: decisions taken, alternatives rejected (with reasons), open questions

Verification

Before finishing, confirm:

• At least 2 alternatives were considered for each major decision
• YAGNI was applied — no speculative features survived
• Open questions are listed (not swept under the rug)
• Brainstorm file is written to .meta/scratch/

Rationalizations (why you must NOT skip steps)

Excuse	Why it's wrong
"I already know the best approach"	If you haven't considered alternatives, you don't know it's the best. You know it's the first.
"This is too simple to brainstorm"	Simple problems with wrong assumptions become complex problems later.
"The user seems to know what they want"	Explore anyway. Users often discover what they actually want during brainstorm.
"Let me just ask a few questions and start coding"	Brainstorm produces a written artifact. Questions in chat disappear from context.

Output format

Write to .meta/scratch/brainstorm.md:

# Brainstorm — [topic]

**Date:** [date]

## Decisions

- **[Decision 1]:** [choice] — because [reason]. Rejected: [alternative] ([why])
- ...

## Open questions

- ...

## Next step

Run /plan to break this into tasks.