brainstorm

Creative Brainstorming Pipeline

Overview

You orchestrate a multi-lens brainstorming session. A curated panel of 5 thinkers from 16 available lenses generates ideas from diverse perspectives, a synthesizer merges them, and the panel votes iteratively until consensus or max rounds.

When to Use

Invoke when the user wants creative ideation, multi-perspective thinking, or diverse viewpoints on an open problem. Trigger phrases: "brainstorm", "creative ideas for", "think about this from different angles", "diverse perspectives on".

When NOT to use

• The user wants a single concrete decision or implementation — use build or explain instead.
• The user wants verification of an existing idea — use investigate instead.
• The problem has one objectively correct answer knowable from docs — look it up instead of ideating.

Input

$ARGUMENTS — The topic, problem, or question to brainstorm. If empty, ask the user.

Constants

• MAX_ITERATIONS: 5
• PANEL_SIZE: 5
• TOTAL_LENSES: 16
• MAJORITY_THRESHOLD: 3
• TASK_DIR: .mz/task/

Available Lenses

Agent	Lens	Best for
lens-engineer	Systems thinking, technical feasibility, scalability	Technical problems, product design, architecture
lens-artist	Aesthetics, form, visual communication, experience	Design, branding, UX, presentation, media
lens-philosopher	Meaning, ethics, cultural impact, narrative framing	Ethics, purpose, messaging, social impact
lens-mathematician	Patterns, optimization, formal logic, structure	Algorithms, processes, strategy, quantitative
lens-scientist	Hypotheses, experiments, evidence, natural systems	Research, validation, methodology, bio-inspired
lens-economist	Incentives, markets, game theory, resource allocation	Business models, pricing, strategy, growth
lens-storyteller	Narrative, metaphor, emotional arcs, audience	Marketing, pitching, content, communication
lens-futurist	Emerging trends, disruption, long-term trajectories	Innovation, strategy, roadmaps, future-proofing
lens-psychologist	Cognition, bias, motivation, behavior, UX	User research, adoption, persuasion, habits
lens-historian	Precedent, patterns of change, cultural context	Risk, lessons learned, positioning, analogies
lens-cto	Architecture, build-vs-buy, tech-debt, org impact	Technology strategy, platform leverage, delivery risk
lens-data	Measurement, experimentation, instrumentation, growth	Metrics design, A/B tests, analytics, growth loops
lens-devops	Reliability, SLOs, observability, capacity, cost	Production systems, on-call, rollout, operational burden
lens-product	PMF, jobs-to-be-done, prioritization, kill criteria	Roadmap, MVP scoping, user value, backlog tradeoffs
lens-security	Threat modeling, attack surface, authZ, compliance	Appsec review, data handling, trust boundaries
lens-seo	Search intent, content strategy, technical SEO	Organic growth, content planning, indexing decisions

Core Process

Phase Overview

#	Phase	Details	Loop?
0	Setup	Inline below	--
1	Panel Selection	Inline below	--
1.5	User Approval	Inline gate	--
2	Ideation	phases/ideation.md	--
3	Synthesis + Voting	phases/voting_and_report.md	max 5 iterations
4	Report	phases/voting_and_report.md	--

Techniques

Techniques: delegated to phase files — see Phase Overview table above.

Common Rationalizations

N/A — collaboration/reference skill, not discipline.

Red Flags

• You collapsed into one-voice output instead of running multiple personas.
• You skipped the critique/voting phase and jumped straight to a report.
• Output lacks persona attribution — ideas cannot be traced to their originating panelist.

Verification

Before completing, output a visible block showing: selected panel (5 names), iteration count, voting rounds, majority verdict or tie status, and the absolute path of the written report. Confirm the report contains per-persona attributions and voting history.

Phase 0: Setup

Derive task name as <YYYY_MM_DD>_brainstorm_<slug> where <YYYY_MM_DD> is today's date (underscores) and slug is a snake_case summary (max 20 chars) of the topic; on same-day collision append _v2, _v3. Create .mz/task/<task_name>/. Write state.md with Status: started, Phase: setup, Started: timestamp, Iteration: 0.

Phase 1: Panel Selection

Analyze the topic and select the PANEL_SIZE (5) best-suited lenses from the table above. Consider:

• What lenses are most relevant to this topic?
• What complementary perspectives would create productive tension?
• Favor diversity of approach over obvious relevance — a historian on a tech problem or an artist on a business problem often produces the most surprising ideas.

Write .mz/task/<task_name>/panel.md with the 5 selected agents and a one-sentence justification for each.

Update state phase to panel_selected.

Phase 1.5: User Approval Gate

This orchestrator (not a subagent) must present to the user via AskUserQuestion. This step is interactive and must not be delegated.

Mandatory pre-read: Read .mz/task/<task_name>/panel.md with the Read tool. Capture the full file contents (5 selected panelist agents with one-sentence justifications) into context. Also list the 5 not-selected lenses inline (derive from the 16-lens table minus the 5 in panel.md).

Mandatory inline-verbatim presentation: The AskUserQuestion question body must contain the verbatim contents of panel.md plus the inline list of not-selected lenses. Never substitute a path, status summary, or <list with justifications> placeholder — the user must review the actual panel composition in the question itself, not have to open the file separately.

Before invoking AskUserQuestion, emit a text block to the user:

**Panel Review**
5-person panel selected for brainstorming "<topic>". Shows selected lenses with justifications and the 11 not-selected alternatives.

- **Approve** → proceed to Phase 2 (Ideation), dispatch panel in parallel
- **Reject** → mark task aborted, stop processing
- **Feedback** → adjust panel selection per input, re-present for approval

Invoke AskUserQuestion with this body (where <verbatim panel.md contents> is replaced by the bytes you just read):

Panel assembled for "<topic>".

Selected (with justifications):
<verbatim panel.md contents>

Not selected: <comma-separated list of 11 remaining lens names>

Type **Approve** to proceed, **Reject** to cancel, or type your feedback.

Response handling:

• "approve" → update state, proceed to Phase 2.
• "reject" → update state to aborted_by_user and stop. Do not proceed.
• Feedback → adjust panel per feedback, overwrite panel.md, return to this gate, re-read panel.md, and re-present via AskUserQuestion with the full new contents — never diff-only, never summary-only, since context compaction may have destroyed the user's memory of earlier iterations. This is a loop — repeat until the user explicitly approves. Never proceed to Phase 2 without explicit approval.

Phase 2: Ideation

Dispatch the 5 selected personality agents in parallel. See phases/ideation.md for dispatch prompt template and idea collection. Update state phase to ideation_complete, increment iteration.

Phase 3: Synthesis + Voting

A randomly-selected panelist synthesizes all ideas, then all 5 vote.

See phases/voting_and_report.md → Phase 3 for synthesis, voting, and convergence check.

If majority reached → proceed to Phase 4. If not and iteration < MAX_ITERATIONS → loop back to Phase 2 with disagreement context. If MAX_ITERATIONS hit → proceed to Phase 4 with best available.

Phase 4: Report

Compile final report with winning ideas, all perspectives, and voting history. See phases/voting_and_report.md → Phase 4 for report template. Write to .mz/reports/<YYYY_MM_DD>_brainstorm_<topic_slug>.md (append _v2, _v3 if exists). Present summary to user.

Error Handling

• Empty topic: ask via AskUserQuestion. Never guess.
• Agent returns empty/off-topic: retry once with clarified prompt. If still empty, exclude from voting and note in report.
• All iterations exhausted without majority: report the top 2-3 ideas with vote distribution and all personality feedback. Let the user decide.
• Tie in votes: report both tied ideas equally, include all justifications.

State Management

After each phase, update .mz/task/<task_name>/state.md. Track current phase, iteration count, votes per round, and participating agents. Persist all ideas and votes in .mz/task/<task_name>/history.md for later rounds.

Critical: never proceed past the approval gate without explicit user approval. Never skip voting. Never fabricate votes.