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name: brainstorming description: Explores user intent, requirements, and design before implementation. Use before creating features, building components, or modifying behavior to turn ideas into designs through collaborative dialogue.

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

When to use this skill

• When the user has a vague idea or feature request.
• Before writing any code or implementation plans.
• When you need to understand purpose, constraints, and success criteria.

Workflow

1. Understand the Idea: Ask questions one at a time to refine the user's intent.
2. Explore Approaches: Propose 2-3 approaches with trade-offs.
3. Present Design: Present the design in small sections (200-300 words) for validation.
4. Finalize: Save the validated design to a markdown file.

Instructions

1. Understanding the Idea

• Context First: Check current project state (files, docs) before asking.
• One Question at a Time: Never overwhelm the user; ask one focused question per turn.
• Multiple Choice: When possible, offer options to choose from.
• Focus: Nail down the purpose, constraints, and success criteria.

2. Exploring Approaches

• Propose Alternatives: Always offer 2-3 different ways to solve the problem (e.g., "Option A: Quick & Dirty", "Option B: Robust & Scalable").
• Trade-offs: Explain pros/cons of each.
• Recommendation: State which option you recommend and why.

3. Presenting the Design

• Incremental: Break the design into sections of 200-300 words.
• Validation: Stop after each section and ask: "Does this look right so far?"
• Content: Cover architecture, components, data flow, error handling, and testing.

4. Output

• Once agreed, write the full design to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md.
• Ask the user if they are ready to proceed to the Planning phase.

Resources

• Planning Skill - For converting the design into actionable tasks.