| name | journey-idea |
| description | Use as stage 1 of the Butterbase journey, when the user has only a rough idea ("I want to build something that..."). Conducts a concrete, one-question-at-a-time brainstorm that surfaces who the user is, what they do first, what the must-haves are, and inline-tags Butterbase capabilities (→ manage_schema, → deploy_function, etc.). Produces docs/butterbase/01-idea.md. |
Journey: Idea brainstorm
Stage 1 of the guided journey. Turn a vague idea into a written brief with capability tags.
When to use
- Dispatched by
journey when current_stage: idea.
- Directly via
/butterbase-skills:idea.
Inputs
None required. Optionally reads any existing 01-idea.md to resume.
Procedure — questioning discipline
Follow the cross-cutting rules from the spec:
- One question at a time. Never batch.
- Multiple-choice preferred, with 2–4 concrete options.
- Concrete, not abstract.
- Recommend when a Butterbase primitive is obvious.
- Tag inline. When a feature surfaces, append the capability tag immediately (
→ manage_schema, → deploy_function, → manage_storage, → manage_oauth, → manage_rag_content, → manage_realtime, → manage_durable_objects, → manage_ai, → create_agent).
- Write as you go. After each answered question, append the decision to
01-idea.md so progress survives a crash.
Walk through these questions in order. Do not skip — but adapt the wording.
"In one sentence, what is the painful thing your user does today that this replaces?""Who is the first user? ① solo creator ② small team ③ end customers of a business ④ Other""What is the first action they take in the app?""If we could ship only ONE screen, which one?""Do two different users see different data when they log in? (yes → user-scoped data → manage_rls; no → shared → simpler)""Are there files/images involved? (yes → manage_storage; no → skip)""Does anything happen on a schedule or in response to an external event? (yes → deploy_function cron/webhook; no → skip)""Is there a knowledge base / search-over-documents feature? (yes → manage_rag_content; no → skip)""Does the UI need live updates or presence? (yes → manage_realtime; no → skip)""Any chat rooms / multiplayer / per-user-actor state? (yes → manage_durable_objects; no → skip)""Any LLM features (chat, embeddings, summarisation)? (yes → manage_ai; no → skip)""Any multi-step LLM+tool workflows the user triggers (e.g. 'summarise my orders', 'auto-tag a doc', 'research and reply')? (yes → create_agent; no → skip)". If yes, also ask: "Will the agent need external MCP servers (e.g. GitHub, Slack, custom MCP)?" and "Visibility: ① only the developer ② any logged-in user ③ unauthenticated public — note: public + write tools requires explicit safety acknowledgement.""Are you planning to publish this app as a public template others can clone? (yes / unlisted-public / no)". Set publish_as_template: <yes|unlisted|no> in 00-state.md front-matter. Public templates require a README with clone instructions and butterbase repo push to sync the source tree — flag this so plan and the publish stage know to plan for it.
If hackathon_mode: true in 00-state.md: after question 4, also ask:
"Hackathon deadline (ISO date/time)?" — write to 00-state.md front-matter.- After each subsequent feature ask
"Can this ship in time, or move to a 'post-hackathon' section?"
01-idea.md format
# Idea
**One-liner:** <user's answer to Q1>
**First user:** <Q2>
**First action:** <Q3>
**One screen:** <Q4>
## Must-haves
- <feature> → <capability tag>
- ...
## Post-hackathon (nice-to-have)
- ...
## Capability map
| Capability | Used? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| manage_schema | yes | core data model |
| manage_rls | yes | user-scoped data |
| manage_oauth | yes | Google sign-in |
| manage_storage | no | no files |
| deploy_function | yes | daily-digest cron |
| manage_ai | no | |
| manage_rag_content | no | |
| manage_realtime | no | |
| manage_durable_objects | no | |
| create_agent | no | |
| publish_as_template | no | set true if user plans to share this app publicly |
Toolchain note
At the end of the idea write-up, also note in one line that the build will use:
@butterbase/sdk for any frontend / Node app code@butterbase/cli for the local dev loop (scaffolding, logs, key generation)- The MCP tools (this plugin) for orchestrating provisioning, deployments, integrations
This sets expectations before plan makes specific package choices.
Outputs
- Writes
docs/butterbase/01-idea.md.
- Ticks
- [x] idea and bumps current_stage: plan, last_updated in 00-state.md.
Anti-patterns
- ❌ "Tell me more about your app." Use the concrete questions above.
- ❌ Asking 3 questions at once.
- ❌ Accepting "all of the above" in hackathon mode — force prioritisation.
- ❌ Moving on before writing
01-idea.md to disk.
