eg-brainstorm

name	eg-brainstorm
description	Generate divergent concept ideas with parallel Codex goldfish and structured synthesis.

EG Brainstorm Skill

Brainstorm a new concept using the elephant/goldfish workflow inverted: multiple fresh goldfish generate divergent ideas, then the elephant synthesizes.

Use the user's text around the $eg-brainstorm skill mention as the rough idea. If no idea is provided, ask for one.

Frame

Use Codex structured user input when available. Otherwise ask concise chat questions.

Ask:

1. Stage: raw concept, hypothesis to validate, picking between options, or feature ideation for existing product.
2. Breadth: about 5 deeper concepts, about 10 balanced concepts, or about 20 shallow concepts.
3. Web research: broad, focused prior-art/market context, or off.

Seed

Print:

SEED
- The thought: <one sentence from the user's rough idea>
- What I think the user is really asking: <underlying need>
- Stage: <answer>
- Breadth target: <answer>
- Web research: <answer>
- Constraints inferred: <bullets>
- Success looks like: <one sentence>
- Out of scope: <bullets>

Ask whether the seed is right. If not, ask which field needs correction and revise before spawning goldfish.

Parallel Goldfish

The user invoked this skill, so parallel fresh subagents are explicitly authorized.

Pick 3-5 lenses:

• Technical / architectural
• Business / market
• User experience
• Contrarian / pre-mortem
• Market research / prior art
• Adjacent / lateral
• First principles

Spawn each as a fresh Codex subagent with fork_context: false and agent_type: "default". If web research is enabled, tell the goldfish to browse/search and cite sources. If a source requires logged-in browser access, the goldfish must ask the elephant to request user approval before navigating.

Each goldfish gets only:

You are a fresh creative thinker with no prior context. Your lens is <LENS NAME>. Stay in that lens.

SEED:
<PASTE SEED>

Generate <PER-LENS COUNT> distinct concepts. For each:
- Name
- The bet
- Why it could win
- Why it could fail
- Sources, if research was used

End with `lens complete`.

For breadth targets of 10 or 20, optionally run one more goldfish: "what they all missed."

Synthesis

Produce:

CONCEPTS BRIEF
Seed: <one-line restatement>

CLUSTERS
<3-5 natural clusters>

RANKED PICKS
1. <concept> — <reasoning and next validation step>
2. <concept> — <reasoning>
3. <concept> — <reasoning>

WHAT THE GOLDFISH AGREED ON
- <signals>

WHAT THEY DISAGREED ON
- <divergences>

OPEN QUESTIONS FOR THE USER
- <questions>

Converge

Ask the user whether to:

• Pick a direction
• Run another round with tighter framing
• Run another round with different lenses
• Save the brief and stop
• Drop it

If saving, infer a project-appropriate path at runtime. Prefer docs/eg-brainstorms/<slug>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md when the repo has a docs/ tree; otherwise use notes/eg-brainstorms/<slug>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md. Ask before writing.

Final Report

Report:

• Seed
• Goldfish count and lenses
• Concept count after deduping
• Top 3 picks
• Save path, if any
• Next action

No code changes or commits unless the user explicitly asks for a saved brief.