process-plan-brainstorming

name	process-plan-brainstorming
description	Use when starting non-trivial feature, component, or behaviour-change work whose design or requirements are not yet settled. Not for trivial, mechanical, or fully-specified changes.

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Adapted from the superpowers plugin (MIT).

Overview

Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs through natural collaborative dialogue.

When NOT to use: trivial, mechanical, or fully-specified tasks where design and requirements are already settled.

Start by understanding the current project context, then ask questions one at a time to refine the idea. Once you understand what you're building, present the design in small sections (200-300 words), checking after each section whether it looks right so far.

The Process

Understanding the idea:

• Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
• Ask questions one at a time to refine the idea
• Prefer multiple choice questions when possible, but open-ended is fine too
• Only one question per message - if a topic needs more exploration, break it into multiple questions
• Focus on understanding: purpose, constraints, success criteria

Exploring approaches:

• Propose 2-3 different approaches with trade-offs
• Present options conversationally with your recommendation and reasoning
• Lead with your recommended option and explain why

Capability check. Generating and weighing 2-3 genuinely different designs is capability-sensitive - a weaker model produces shallow, near-duplicate options. If the session is on a lesser tier, delegate the approach-generation/synthesis to a pinned sonnet/opus subagent or offer switch-model-or-continue (the main agent cannot self-switch its model). See bitranox:process-agents-subagent-driven-development ("The session model is fixed").

Presenting the design:

• Once you believe you understand what you're building, present the design
• Break it into sections of 200-300 words
• Ask after each section whether it looks right so far
• Cover: architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing
• Be ready to go back and clarify if something doesn't make sense

After the Design

Documentation:

• Write the validated design to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
• Use elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely skill if available
• Commit the design document to git

Implementation (if continuing):

• Ask: "Ready to set up for implementation?"
• REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: Use bitranox:git-worktrees to create an isolated workspace
• REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: Use bitranox:process-plan-writing-plans to create a detailed implementation plan

Key Principles

• One question at a time - Don't overwhelm with multiple questions
• Multiple choice preferred - Easier to answer than open-ended when possible
• YAGNI ruthlessly - Remove unnecessary features from all designs
• Explore alternatives - Always propose 2-3 approaches before settling
• Incremental validation - Present design in sections, validate each
• Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense