guided-brief-creation

name	guided-brief-creation
description	Interactive, facilitated workflow that guides the human from raw ideas to a structured product brief. Uses staged elicitation — understand intent first, then fill sections through conversation, then draft and review. Inspired by the BMAD Method's collaborative discovery pattern.

Delegation Reference: This skill describes work the orchestrator delegates to specialist agents via the Agent tool. Each step names the target agent. The orchestrator does NOT execute these steps directly.

Hard Gate

Do NOT skip to PRD creation, architecture design, or any implementation activity. The product brief MUST be completed and validated before proceeding.

Guided Brief Creation

Prerequisites

• Human has provided an initial product idea or description (via orchestrator conversation)
• .factory/planning/ directory exists (or will be created during workflow)
• templates/product-brief-template.md exists for brief structure

When This Skill Runs

• When artifact detection finds L0 (no artifacts) and human chooses brief creation
• After brainstorming, to capture the selected direction as a brief
• When the human says "help me write a product brief"

Your Role

You are a product-focused collaborator guiding the human from raw ideas to a structured product brief. You are NOT writing the brief for them -- you are drawing out their vision through structured conversation.

The human is the domain expert. You bring structured thinking, facilitation, and the ability to synthesize scattered input into clear narrative.

Visual Tooling

When visual content would help the human understand options or make decisions, use the best available tool. No hard dependency on any single tool.

Tier	Tool	Check	Best for
1	/vsdd-factory:visual-companion	Node.js available, user accepts	Interactive mockups, A/B choices, clickable layouts
1	/vsdd-factory:visual-companion (excalidraw)	Setup completed	Architecture diagrams, entity relationships, interactive editing
2	/vsdd-factory:create-excalidraw	Always available	Generate .excalidraw files for offline viewing in excalidraw.com or VS Code
3	Mermaid code blocks	Always available	Sequence diagrams, state machines, simple flows
4	ASCII/text	Always available	Wireframe sketches, table layouts, comparisons

Before using Tier 1, ask the human once:

"I can show visual options in a browser for this. Want to try it? (Requires Node.js and opening a local URL)"

If they decline or Node.js isn't available, fall back to the next tier. For non-visual questions (scope, requirements, tradeoffs), always use the terminal — visual tooling is for content that IS visual.

Workflow

Stage 1: Understand Intent

Before anything else, understand WHAT the brief is about.

If the human provided context (description, docs, brain dump):

• Summarize your understanding of the product/idea
• Ask: "Is that right? Anything to add or correct?"
• Ask: "Do you have any existing documents, research, or brainstorming I should review?"

If the human provided nothing:

• Ask: "What's your product or project idea about?"
• Let them brain dump -- capture everything, don't interrupt for structure
• Ask: "Anything else before I start organizing?"

Capture-don't-interrupt: If the human shares details beyond brief scope (requirements, technical preferences, timeline), capture them for later. Don't redirect -- let their creative flow continue.

Stage 2: Contextual Discovery

If the human provided existing documents:

• Spawn research-agent to analyze provided documents
• Extract relevant insights for the brief
• If web research would help (competitive landscape, technical feasibility), spawn research-agent for deep research (perplexity_research)

If the human provided brainstorming output:

• Read .factory/planning/brainstorming-report.md
• Use the selected direction as the brief's foundation

Stage 3: Guided Elicitation

For each section of the product brief template, engage the human:

"What Is This?" -- Help them articulate the essence in one paragraph. Ask: "If you had 30 seconds to explain this to someone, what would you say?"

"Who Is It For?" -- Push for specificity. Ask: "Describe your ideal user. What's their job? What frustrates them today?" Challenge: "Is that really the primary user, or is there someone upstream?"

"Why Does It Matter?" -- Connect to business outcomes. Ask: "If this doesn't get built, what happens? Who loses?" Challenge: "Is that a nice-to-have or a need-to-have?"

"What Makes It Different?" -- Force competitive positioning. Ask: "What do people use today instead? Why is that not good enough?" If they say "nothing exists": "Then why hasn't anyone built it?"

"Scope" -- Draw boundaries. Ask: "What's the ONE thing this must do in version 1?" Challenge: "If you had to cut that list in half, what stays?"

"Success" -- Quantify outcomes. Ask: "How would you know if this succeeded? What number would change?" Challenge: "Is that measurable? How would you actually track it?"

Stage 4: Draft & Review

• Draft the brief using templates/product-brief-template.md
• Present to the human section by section
• For each section: "Does this capture your intent? What's wrong or missing?"
• Iterate until the human approves each section

Stage 5: Adversarial Review (Optional)

If the human wants confidence in the brief:

• Spawn adversary agent (fresh context) to review for:
  • Vague or unmeasurable success criteria
  • Scope too broad for a single product
  • Missing audience (who else might care?)
  • Competitive positioning gaps
• Present findings to human, iterate if needed

Stage 6: Finalize

• Write final brief to .factory/planning/product-brief.md
• If detailed notes were captured during elicitation (requirements, technical constraints, timeline), write them to .factory/planning/elicitation-notes.md for Phase 1 to reference
• Route to Phase 1 (Spec Crystallization)

Step-File Decomposition

Directory: workflows/skills/guided-brief-creation/steps/

File	Step
step-01-understand-intent.md	Understand Intent
step-02-contextual-discovery.md	Contextual Discovery
step-03-guided-elicitation.md	Guided Elicitation
step-04-draft-review.md	Draft & Review
step-05-adversarial-review.md	Adversarial Review (Optional)
step-06-finalize.md	Finalize Brief

Market Intelligence Integration

When creating the Audience & Pain section, reference .factory/planning/market-intel.md:

• Confirmed pains → include in brief
• Unconfirmed pains → flag as assumptions requiring validation
• Differentiation opportunities → inform Identity & Scope
• Risk signals → inform Integration & Constraints

Output Artifacts

• .factory/planning/product-brief.md
• .factory/planning/elicitation-notes.md (if additional context was captured)

Failure Modes

• If human provides contradictory requirements: flag the specific contradictions and ask the human to resolve before proceeding
• If domain is unfamiliar (specialized industry, niche technology): spawn research-agent for domain context before Stage 3 elicitation
• If human disengages mid-elicitation: save progress to elicitation-notes.md and present a resumption summary on return