Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Overview

Collaborative design refinement through Socratic dialogue. Explore project context, ask clarifying questions one at a time, propose 2-3 approaches, present design in sections for incremental approval, then transition to planning.

Core principle: No implementation until design is approved. Every project goes through this.

When to Use

• Before ANY creative or implementation work
• New features, components, modifications
• Even "simple" projects (unexamined assumptions cause wasted work)

Process

1. Explore project context - files, docs, recent commits
2. Ask clarifying questions - one at a time, prefer multiple choice
3. Propose 2-3 approaches - with tradeoffs and recommendation
4. Present design in sections - get approval after each section
5. Write design doc - save to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
6. Transition to writing-plans - the ONLY next step

HARD GATE

Do NOT invoke any implementation, write any code, or take action until design is approved.

Key Principles

• One question at a time
• YAGNI ruthlessly
• Incremental validation
• Scale sections to complexity

Agents Used

• agents/code-reviewer/ - For design document review
• Process agents defined in brainstorming.js

Tool Use

Invoke via babysitter process: methodologies/superpowers/brainstorming