brainstorming

name	brainstorming
description	Use when the user wants to brainstorm or explore an idea — a feature, product direction, or "what if" — before deciding whether it deserves a plan. Ideation only — ends in an idea brief, not a design.

Brainstorming

Turn a fuzzy idea into a clear direction through conversation. Brainstorming answers what are we trying to do? — how will we build it? belongs to grill-with-docs, so when the conversation drifts toward architecture, code, or "how should this fit this repo?", stop and offer to move there. The brief below is the only artifact this skill produces: no specs, issues, commits, or code.

If invoked with no idea attached, read references/gamechanging-feature.md and follow it to surface a candidate.

Diverge

1. Name the raw idea. Restate it in one or two sentences so the user can correct you early.
2. Ask one question per turn about purpose, audience, pain, outcome, constraints, and non-goals. Make each easy to answer: concrete options, multiple choice when it helps, your recommended answer included.
3. Sketch what has shape. When the idea is visual — UI, workflow, comparison, diagram, mental model — a sketch beats another paragraph, so reach for the companion routinely. Offer it in its own message and wait:

   Want me to spin up a local browser companion for sketches and diagrams? It's token-heavier but often clearer than text. (Requires opening a local URL.) If they agree, read references/visual-companion.md and follow it; if they decline, continue text-only.

4. Offer 2–3 directions with plain-language trade-offs.

Converge

When you can fill every field of the brief from the user's own answers — not your guesses — produce it:

## Idea brief

Idea:

Audience:

Problem / pain:

Desired outcome:

Non-goals:

Promising directions:
1.
2.
3.

Recommended direction:

Open questions for `grill-with-docs`:
-
-

Then ask (use AskUserQuestion if available):

Want to run grill-with-docs to refine this idea further? Want to save this idea to the backlog to pick up later?

If they save it: write the brief to ai-docs/plans/<YYYY-MM-DD-project>/idea.md (today's date, short kebab-case project slug; create the directory), and if the visual companion ran, copy its mockup HTML files from the session's screen_dir into mockups/ beside the brief. Then add it to the backlog using the backlog skill. In that same directory, /to-spec will later write spec.md and /to-tickets will write issues/<NNN>-<name>.md.