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name: brainstorming description: Refines rough ideas into fully-formed designs through collaborative questioning, alternative exploration, and incremental validation. Use before writing code or implementation plans.

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:

• Use the Skill(issues) to write the validated design to thoughts/shared/issues/<path-to-issue>/design.md

• Ask: "Want to create a plan or begin implementation?"

• Create detailed implementation plan in the same issue folder

Key Principles

• Prefer: sketch shape → confirm → implement. Get agreement on structure before details.

• Present code changes outside-in, showing new code in context with surrounding existing code:

1. Usage & Signature - reveal the API shape, types, and ergonomics
2. Flow - show where new code lands relative to existing code

Example - adding a formatCurrency utility:

// Usage
function formatCurrency(cents: number, currency: 'USD' | 'EUR' | 'GBP'): string

formatCurrency(1999, 'USD');  // "$19.99"
formatCurrency(1999, 'EUR');  // "€19.99"

// Flow - where it lands in existing code
// src/components/ProductCard.tsx
export function ProductCard({ product }: Props) {
  const store = useStore();                          // existing
  const price = formatCurrency(product.cents, ...);  // ← new

  return (
    <div className="card">                           {/* existing */}
      <span className="price">{price}</span>         {/* ← new */}
      <span className="name">{product.name}</span>   {/* existing */}
    </div>
  );
}

The reviewer should see what already exists around the new code, not just the new code in isolation.

• Implementation: the "how" (often skippable unless important)
• 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