brainstorming

name	brainstorming
description	Turn a vague request into an agreed design before any code is written. HARD GATE — produce a design and get explicit approval first; do not implement, scaffold, or edit until the user approves. Use whenever a request is non-trivial or under-specified.
user-invocable	true

Brainstorming

Do NOT write code, scaffold a project, or edit files during this skill. The only output is an agreed design. Implementation begins only after the user explicitly approves.

Process

1. Restate the problem in one paragraph. Surface hidden assumptions and name what's genuinely ambiguous.
2. Challenge the premise. Is this the right problem? What happens if we do nothing? What existing code already partly solves it?
3. Offer 2-3 distinct approaches — at minimum a minimal-viable and an ideal-architecture — each with effort, risk, and what it reuses.
4. Recommend one with a one-line reason.
5. Get explicit approval before proceeding. If the user disagrees with a premise, revise and loop.

Why the gate

Code written before the problem is understood is the most expensive code there is. The forcing questions are the value, not friction. A wrong architecture chosen in five minutes costs days to unwind.

Hand-off

On approval, the design becomes the plan for subagent-driven-development: each agreed piece of work becomes a ledger task.