brainstorming
Use when creating or developing, before writing code or implementation plans - refines rough ideas into fully-formed designs through collaborative questioning, alternative exploration, and incremental validation. Don't use during clear 'mechanical' processes
When & Why to Use This Skill
The Brainstorming skill is a collaborative design assistant that transforms vague ideas into comprehensive technical specifications and architectural plans. By utilizing iterative questioning and incremental validation, it helps developers explore multiple technical approaches and finalize system designs before a single line of code is written, ensuring project clarity and reducing technical debt.
Use Cases
- Technical Specification Drafting: Converting a rough feature concept into a detailed design document covering architecture, data flow, and error handling.
- Architectural Trade-off Analysis: Proposing and comparing multiple implementation strategies to identify the most efficient and scalable solution for a specific problem.
- Requirement Discovery: Using structured, one-at-a-time questioning to uncover hidden constraints and success criteria in complex software projects.
- Pre-implementation Planning: Creating a validated source of truth in Markdown format to guide development teams and ensure alignment on project goals.
| name | brainstorming |
|---|---|
| description | Use when creating or developing, before writing code or implementation plans - refines rough ideas into fully-formed designs through collaborative questioning, alternative exploration, and incremental validation. Don't use during clear 'mechanical' processes |
Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs
Overview
Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs through natural collaborative dialogue.
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
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?"
- Use using-git-worktrees to create isolated workspace
- Use writing-plans to create 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