/brainstorming

name: brainstorming
description: "You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation."

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

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 and get user approval.

<HARD-GATE> Do NOT invoke any implementation skill, write any code, scaffold any project, or take any implementation action until you have presented a design and the user has approved it. This applies to EVERY project regardless of perceived simplicity. </HARD-GATE>

**Production-Grade Doctrine** applies with full force here — trade-offs are *first chosen* in brainstorming: you MUST NOT simplify a design by quietly cutting a required behavior; surface every material trade-off and let the user decide. Never weaken, bypass, or remove a security control — a security regression is never acceptable.

Anti-Pattern: "This Is Too Simple To Need A Design"

Every project goes through this process. A todo list, a single-function utility, a config change — all of them. "Simple" projects are where unexamined assumptions cause the most wasted work. The design can be short (a few sentences for truly simple projects), but you MUST present it and get approval.

Checklist

You MUST create the session bead + step children up front via `bd import`: first `bd create "Brainstorming: <topic>" -t task` (the permanent session bead — the audit trail; note its id), then author each checklist step as JSONL (one issue per line, `"issue_type":"chore"`, an explicit `"priority"`, `id` omitted, and a `parent-child` dep to the session id) and pipe to `bd import -`. Read `bd import --help` on first use; confirm the output shows no `Skipped dependency`. **Cleanup:** close each step bead as you complete it; if you abandon the brainstorm, close or `bd purge` the open steps (import children are permanent, not self-cleaning). Then complete the steps in order:

1. **Explore project context** — check files, docs, recent commits, and query the KB for prior decisions/research on the topic 2. **Offer the visual companion just-in-time** — NOT upfront. The first time a question would genuinely be clearer shown than described, offer it then (its own message); on approval its browser tab opens for you. If no visual question ever arises, never offer it. See the Visual Companion section below. 3. **Ask clarifying questions** — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria 4. **Propose 2-3 approaches** — with trade-offs and your recommendation 5. **Present design** — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section 6. **Write design doc** — save to `.internal/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md` and commit 7. **Spec self-review** — quick inline check for placeholders, contradictions, ambiguity, scope (see below) 8. **User reviews written spec** — ask user to review the spec file before proceeding 9. **Spec-review gate offers stress-test** — the spec-review gate (step 8) includes an "Approved + stress-test" option, offered every time; if selected, invoke `stress-test` before writing-plans 10. **Transition to implementation** — invoke writing-plans skill to create implementation plan

Process Flow

digraph brainstorming {
    "Explore project context" [shape=box];
    "Ask clarifying questions" [shape=box];
    "Propose 2-3 approaches" [shape=box];
    "Present design sections" [shape=box];
    "User approves design?" [shape=diamond];
    "Write design doc" [shape=box];
    "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)" [shape=box];
    "User reviews spec?" [shape=diamond];
    "Stress-test selected\nat gate?" [shape=diamond];
    "Invoke stress-test skill" [shape=box];
    "Invoke writing-plans skill" [shape=doublecircle];

    "Explore project context" -> "Ask clarifying questions";
    "Ask clarifying questions" -> "Propose 2-3 approaches";
    "Propose 2-3 approaches" -> "Present design sections";
    "Present design sections" -> "User approves design?";
    "User approves design?" -> "Present design sections" [label="no, revise"];
    "User approves design?" -> "Write design doc" [label="yes"];
    "Write design doc" -> "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)";
    "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)" -> "User reviews spec?";
    "User reviews spec?" -> "Write design doc" [label="changes requested"];
    "User reviews spec?" -> "Stress-test selected\nat gate?" [label="approved"];
    "Stress-test selected\nat gate?" -> "Invoke stress-test skill" [label="selected"];
    "Stress-test selected\nat gate?" -> "Invoke writing-plans skill" [label="skipped"];
    "Invoke stress-test skill" -> "Invoke writing-plans skill";
}

**The terminal state is writing-plans.** The only other skill brainstorming may invoke is **stress-test** (optional, between spec approval and writing-plans). Do NOT invoke frontend-design, mcp-builder, or any other implementation skill.

The Process

**Understanding the idea:**

• Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
• Before proposing any design, query the knowledge store: `bd list --label <topic> --status all` + `bd search "<keywords>" --status all` + `bd memories <keyword>` (the memory half — lessons, patterns, root-causes; knowledge-beads alone miss it entirely) (body terms: add `--desc-contains "<term>"` — search matches titles only; >10 hits: narrow the query, never triage truncated titles). Then read — hits are pointers, not knowledge: `bd show <id1> <id2> ...` every hit that plausibly bears on this design (full bodies, never truncated below 50 lines; distilled <=2.5KB by design — sanctioned spend). 0 relevant does not mean none exist — re-angle the query once before emitting `KB check: no