brainstorming

name	brainstorming
description	Use ONLY when the user explicitly asks to brainstorm, use brainstorming.

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Help turn ideas into Zest Dev specs through natural collaborative dialogue, covering the equivalent of Zest Dev's new, research, design, and plan phases.

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 plan for user approval, then capture the result in a Zest Dev change spec advanced to planned.

When this skill is active, do NOT invoke any implementation skill, write any code, scaffold any project, or take any implementation action until you have presented a design and plan and the user has approved them. This applies to EVERY brainstorming session regardless of perceived simplicity.

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

Every active brainstorming session goes through this process. A todo list, a single-function utility, a config change — all of them can still hide assumptions when the user has explicitly asked to brainstorm. The design and plan can be short (a few sentences for truly simple projects), but you MUST present them and get approval.

Checklist

You MUST create a task for each of these items and complete them in order:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
2. Offer visual companion (if topic will involve visual questions) — this is its own message, not combined with a clarifying question. See the Visual Companion section below.
3. Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
4. Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
5. Present design and plan — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
6. Write Zest Dev spec — use the zest-dev CLI to create or update a change spec in the standard Zest Dev spec location; when creating a new spec, immediately set it active with zest-dev set-active <spec-id>; write Overview, Research, Design, and Plan content, and make the Plan include a dedicated EAG Validation step before the final Documentation Sync step
7. Spec self-review — quick inline check for placeholders, contradictions, ambiguity, scope (see below)
8. Mark planned — check the current spec status and use the zest-dev CLI to advance it to planned only when needed

Process Flow

digraph brainstorming {
    "Explore project context" [shape=box];
    "Visual questions ahead?" [shape=diamond];
    "Offer Visual Companion\n(own message, no other content)" [shape=box];
    "Ask clarifying questions" [shape=box];
    "Propose 2-3 approaches" [shape=box];
    "Present design and plan sections" [shape=box];
    "User approves design and plan?" [shape=diamond];
    "Write Zest Dev spec" [shape=box];
    "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)" [shape=box];
    "Update Zest Dev spec to planned" [shape=doublecircle];

    "Explore project context" -> "Visual questions ahead?";
    "Visual questions ahead?" -> "Offer Visual Companion\n(own message, no other content)" [label="yes"];
    "Visual questions ahead?" -> "Ask clarifying questions" [label="no"];
    "Offer Visual Companion\n(own message, no other content)" -> "Ask clarifying questions";
    "Ask clarifying questions" -> "Propose 2-3 approaches";
    "Propose 2-3 approaches" -> "Present design and plan sections";
    "Present design and plan sections" -> "User approves design and plan?";
    "User approves design and plan?" -> "Present design and plan sections" [label="no, revise"];
    "User approves design and plan?" -> "Write Zest Dev spec" [label="yes"];
    "Write Zest Dev spec" -> "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)";
    "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)" -> "Update Zest Dev spec to planned";
}

The terminal state is the active Zest Dev change spec at planned. Do NOT invoke implementation skills, write implementation code, or start implementation work as part of this skill.

The Process

Understanding the idea:

• Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
• Before asking detailed questions, assess scope: if the request describes multiple independent subsystems (e.g., "build a platform with chat, file storage, billing, and analytics"), flag this immediately. Don't spend questions refining details of a project that needs to be decomposed first.
• If the project is too large for a single spec, help the user decompose into sub-projects: what are the independent pieces, how do they relate, what order should they be built? Then brainstorm the first sub-project through the normal design flow. Each sub-project gets its own spec → plan → implementation cycle.
• For appropriately-scoped projects, 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
• 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
• Be ready to go back and clarify if something doesn't make sense

Design for isolation and clarity:

• Break the system into smaller units that each have one clear purpose, communicate through well-defined interfaces, and can be understood and tested independently
• For each unit, you should be able to answer: what does it do, how do you use it, and what does it depend on?
• Can someone understand what a unit does without reading its internals? Can you change the internals without breaking consumers? If not, the boundaries need work.
• Smaller, well-bounded units are also easier for you to work with - you reason better about code you can hold in context at once, and your edits are more reliable when files are focused. When a file grows large, that's often a signal that it's doing too much.

Working in existing codebases:

• Explore the current structure before proposing changes. Follow existing patterns.
• Where existing code has problems that affect the work (e.g., a file that's grown too large, unclear boundaries, tangled responsibilities), include targeted improvements as part of the design - the way a good developer improves code they're working in.
• Don't propose unrelated refactoring. Stay focused on what serves the current goal.

After the Design

Zest Dev spec:

• Create or update the relevant change spec in Zest Dev's standard spec directory.
• If you create a new spec with zest-dev create <slug>, immediately set the created spec active with zest-dev set-active <spec-id> before editing or advancing it.
• Write concise content for Overview, Research, Design and Plan sections.
• When writing Plan, include a dedicated EAG Validation step after the functional implementation steps and before the final Documentation Sync step.
• Use elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely skill if available

Spec Self-Review: After writing the spec document, look at it with fresh eyes:

1. Placeholder scan: Any "TBD", "TODO", incomplete sections, or vague requirements? Fix them.
2. Internal consistency: Do any sections contradict each other? Does the architecture match the feature descriptions?
3. Scope check: Is this focused enough for a single implementation plan, or does it need decomposition?
4. Plan invariant check: Does the Plan include a dedicated EAG Validation step before the final Documentation Sync step? Fix it if not.
5. Ambiguity check: Could any requirement be interpreted two different ways? If so, pick one and make it explicit.

Fix any issues inline. No need to re-review — just fix and move on.

Completion:

• Check the current spec status first.
• Confirm the spec is active; if not, run zest-dev set-active <spec-id> before updating status.
• If the spec is not already planned, use the zest-dev CLI to update it to planned.
• If the spec is already planned, skip the status update and finish the skill cleanly.
• Do NOT invoke any implementation skill or start implementation work.

Key Principles

• 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, get approval before moving on
• Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense

Visual Companion

A browser-based companion for showing mockups, diagrams, and visual options during brainstorming. Available as a tool — not a mode. Accepting the companion means it's available for questions that benefit from visual treatment; it does NOT mean every question goes through the browser.

Offering the companion: When you anticipate that upcoming questions will involve visual content (mockups, layouts, diagrams), offer it once for consent:

"Some of what we're working on might be easier to explain if I can show it to you in a web browser. I can put together mockups, diagrams, comparisons, and other visuals as we go. This feature is still new and can be token-intensive. Want to try it? (Requires opening a local URL)"

This offer MUST be its own message. Do not combine it with clarifying questions, context summaries, or any other content. The message should contain ONLY the offer above and nothing else. Wait for the user's response before continuing. If they decline, proceed with text-only brainstorming.

Per-question decision: Even after the user accepts, decide FOR EACH QUESTION whether to use the browser or the terminal. The test: would the user understand this better by seeing it than reading it?

• Use the browser for content that IS visual — mockups, wireframes, layout comparisons, architecture diagrams, side-by-side visual designs
• Use the terminal for content that is text — requirements questions, conceptual choices, tradeoff lists, A/B/C/D text options, scope decisions

A question about a UI topic is not automatically a visual question. "What does personality mean in this context?" is a conceptual question — use the terminal. "Which wizard layout works better?" is a visual question — use the browser.

If they agree to the companion, read the detailed guide before proceeding: skills/brainstorming/visual-companion.md