brainstorming

name	brainstorming
description	Use this before any creative work — creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements, and design before implementation. Drafts the spec into the GitHub issue body for team review.
compatibility	polytoken-only

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs through collaborative dialogue, then post the spec to the GitHub issue body for review. This is the design gate that prevents the failure mode of building the wrong thing: no code is written until a design has been presented and approved.

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, then post it to the issue and exit — a member must apply spec:approved before implementation begins.

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.

Where the spec lives

The spec lives in the GitHub issue body, between <!-- spec:start --> and <!-- spec:end --> markers — never as a committed docs/superpowers/ file. This is project convention (ADR-0020, reflected in docs/spec-template.md): GitHub-as-truth, no on-disk workflow state, review happens where the issue is. Preserve the original problem statement above the markers; write the spec between them via gh issue edit <N> --body-file.

This is a deliberate alteration of the upstream Superpowers brainstorming skill, which writes specs to docs/superpowers/specs/. Do not do that.

Checklist

You MUST work through these items in order:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits, docs/adr/, AGENT_GLOSSARY_MAP.md for canonical terms.
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. Run the verify-against-code pass — for every new surface the design proposes, verify against code (not docs/summaries) and label it [BUILT & WIRED] / [BUILT, NOT WIRED] / [ABSENT] with file:line + caller evidence. This produces the anti-reinvention ledger, embedded as a section of the spec. A spec without a code-verified ledger is not finalized. (Skill at tools/skills/verify-against-code/.)
6. Write the spec into the issue body — between the <!-- spec:start --> / <!-- spec:end --> markers, using the section layout in docs/spec-template.md. Preserve the original problem statement above the markers.
7. Spec self-review — quick inline check (see below).
8. Dispatch the spec reviewer — using the prompt at tools/skills/issue-to-merged-pr/spec-document-reviewer-prompt.md (project-local; extends the canonical reviewer with contract-completeness, implied-condition, and external-constraint checks). If invoked standalone (not via the orchestration skill), run the review inline or via a subagent.
9. Hand off for spec review and exit — flip the issue label and post a review-request comment (see below). Do NOT proceed to implementation.

The Process

Understanding the idea:

• Check the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits, ADRs).
• Before asking detailed questions, assess scope: if the request describes multiple independent subsystems, flag this immediately. Don't spend questions refining details of a project that needs decomposition.
• If the project is too large for a single spec, help 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.
• Use canonical vocabulary from AGENT_GLOSSARY_MAP.md; reference relevant ADRs.
• 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 a unit does without reading its internals? Can you change the internals without breaking consumers? If not, the boundaries need work.

Working in existing codebases:

• Explore the current structure before proposing changes. Follow existing patterns.
• Where existing code has problems that affect the work, include targeted improvements as part of the design — the way a good developer improves code they are working in.
• Don't propose unrelated refactoring. Stay focused on what serves the current goal.

After the Design

Write the spec to the issue body (not a committed file):

1. Read the current issue body: gh issue view <N> --json body --jq .body.
2. Compose the new body: the original problem statement (preserved above the markers), then <!-- spec:start -->, the spec content using docs/spec-template.md's section layout (including the anti-reinvention ledger from the verify-against-code pass), then <!-- spec:end -->.
3. Write it back: gh issue edit <N> --body-file <tmpfile> (write the composed body to a temp file first — gh reads the new body from a file more reliably than from a shell-quoted argument).

Spec Self-Review: After writing the spec, 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. Ambiguity check: Could any requirement be interpreted two different ways? If so, pick one and make it explicit.
5. Deferral verification: Every "deferred" follow-up listed is a proposed future surface — verify its premise against code (the same verify-against-code pass). Drop it if already built/handled; write design-open items as needs-design questions, not asserted work.

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

Hand off for spec review and exit

This is the exit gate. After the spec is written to the issue and self-reviewed:

1. gh issue edit <N> --remove-label status:spec-draft --add-label status:spec-review.
2. Post a comment that @-mentions the review target (default @TehomCD; configurable to a @Arx-Game/<team> handle) and links the spec section.
3. Exit. Spec review is async and on a human. Do NOT proceed to plan or implementation, and do NOT apply spec:approved — only a member does that.

The agent resumes (in a later invocation) once a member has applied spec:approved; the plan from writing-plans is produced then and is ephemeral (worktree-only, never committed).

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.
• GitHub is the truth — the spec lives on the issue, not on disk. No committed spec file, no on-disk workflow state.