brainstorming

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.

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.

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 a brainstorming session bead (bd create "Brainstorming: <topic>" -t task) and child beads for each checklist step below (bd create "Step N: <title>" -t chore --parent <session-bead-id>), then complete them in order:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
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. (Optional) Offer stress-test — if the design is complex or high-risk, invoke stress-test skill for adversarial review before proceeding
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];
    "Design complex\nor risky?" [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?" -> "Design complex\nor risky?" [label="approved"];
    "Design complex\nor risky?" -> "Invoke stress-test skill" [label="yes"];
    "Design complex\nor risky?" -> "Invoke writing-plans skill" [label="no"];
    "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 asking detailed questions, assess scope: if the request describes multiple independent subsystems (e.g., "build a platform with chat, file storage, billing, and analytics"), flag this immediately. Don't spend questions refining details of a project that needs to be decomposed first.
• If the project is too large for a single spec, help the user decompose into sub-projects: what are the independent pieces, how do they relate, what order should they be built? Then brainstorm the first sub-project through the normal design flow. Each sub-project gets its own spec → plan → implementation cycle.
• For appropriately-scoped projects, ask questions one at a time to refine the idea
• Prefer multiple choice questions when possible — use the AskUserQuestion tool for these (structured options are faster to answer than reading text and typing a response). Open-ended questions that don't have clear discrete options can remain as text.
• 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
• Use the AskUserQuestion tool to present the approaches as structured options. Put your recommended option first with "(Recommended)" in the label. Use the description field for trade-offs and reasoning. This is more efficient than text blocks that require the user to read and type a response.
• If approaches need detailed explanation beyond what fits in option descriptions, present the analysis as text first, THEN follow up with an AskUserQuestion invocation for the actual selection

Presenting the design:

• Once you believe you understand what you're building, present the design
• Scale each section to its complexity: a few sentences if straightforward, up to 200-300 words if nuanced
• After presenting each section, use the AskUserQuestion tool to check approval:

  {
    "questions": [{
      "question": "Does the <section-name> section look right?",
      "header": "Design",
      "options": [
        {"label": "Looks good", "description": "Approve this section and move to the next one"},
        {"label": "Needs changes", "description": "I have feedback or revisions for this section"}
      ],
      "multiSelect": false
    }]
  }
  

• Cover: architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing
• Be ready to go back and clarify if something doesn't make sense

Design for isolation and clarity:

• Break the system into smaller units that each have one clear purpose, communicate through well-defined interfaces, and can be understood and tested independently
• For each unit, you should be able to answer: what does it do, how do you use it, and what does it depend on?
• Can someone understand what a unit does without reading its internals? Can you change the internals without breaking consumers? If not, the boundaries need work.
• Smaller, well-bounded units are also easier for you to work with - you reason better about code you can hold in context at once, and your edits are more reliable when files are focused. When a file grows large, that's often a signal that it's doing too much.

Working in existing codebases:

• Explore the current structure before proposing changes. Follow existing patterns.
• Where existing code has problems that affect the work (e.g., a file that's grown too large, unclear boundaries, tangled responsibilities), include targeted improvements as part of the design - the way a good developer improves code they're working in.
• Don't propose unrelated refactoring. Stay focused on what serves the current goal.

After the Design

Documentation:

• Write the validated design (spec) to .internal/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
  • (User preferences for spec location override this default)
• Use elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely skill if available
• Commit the design document to git

Capture what you learned before closing:

bd remember "design: <key design decision and rationale>"

If a previous memory is now wrong, bd forget <id> first.

Spec Self-Review: After writing the spec document, look at it with fresh eyes:

1. Placeholder scan: Any "TBD", "TODO", incomplete sections, or vague requirements? Fix them.
2. Internal consistency: Do any sections contradict each other? Does the architecture match the feature descriptions?
3. Scope check: Is this focused enough for a single implementation plan, or does it need decomposition?
4. Ambiguity check: Could any requirement be interpreted two different ways? If so, pick one and make it explicit.

Fix any issues inline. No need to re-review — just fix and move on.

User Review Gate: After the spec review loop passes, open the spec file in the user's editor so they can review it, then gate progression with AskUserQuestion:

User's preferred editor: !echo ${VISUAL:-${EDITOR:-not-configured}}

⚠️ Run the open command as a standalone Bash call — never chain it after bd commands in the same invocation (e.g., bd close <id> && open file.md). The combination hangs.

# Open in user's preferred editor, with platform fallbacks
if [ -n "$VISUAL" ]; then
  "$VISUAL" "<spec-file-path>"
elif [ -n "$EDITOR" ]; then
  "$EDITOR" "<spec-file-path>"
elif command -v open >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  open "<spec-file-path>"
else
  xdg-open "<spec-file-path>" 2>/dev/null
fi
# If none available: just report the path

Then immediately use the AskUserQuestion tool:

{
  "questions": [{
    "question": "Spec opened in your editor at `<path>`. Review it and let me know when ready.",
    "header": "Spec review",
    "options": [
      {"label": "Approved", "description": "Spec looks good — proceed to writing the implementation plan"},
      {"label": "Needs changes", "description": "I want to revise the spec before proceeding"}
    ],
    "multiSelect": false
  }]
}

If the user selects "Needs changes", make the requested changes and re-run the spec review loop. Only proceed to writing-plans once approved.

Implementation:

• Optionally invoke stress-test first if the design is complex or high-risk. Use the AskUserQuestion tool to offer:

  {
    "questions": [{
      "question": "This design has some complexity. Want to stress-test it before planning?",
      "header": "Stress test",
      "options": [
        {"label": "Yes, stress-test it", "description": "Run adversarial review to find gaps before committing to a plan"},
        {"label": "No, proceed to planning", "description": "Skip stress-test and go straight to writing the implementation plan"}
      ],
      "multiSelect": false
    }]
  }
  

• Invoke the writing-plans skill to create a detailed implementation plan
• Do NOT invoke any other skill besides stress-test (optional) and writing-plans.
• Pass the brainstorming bead context forward: the epic bead created during plan execution should reference the brainstorming session bead via bd dep add <epic-id> <brainstorming-bead-id> --type discovered-from

Key Principles

• 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, get approval before moving on
• Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense

Visual Companion

A browser-based companion for showing mockups, diagrams, and visual options during brainstorming. Available as a tool — not a mode. Accepting the companion means it's available for questions that benefit from visual treatment; it does NOT mean every question goes through the browser.

Offering the companion (just-in-time): Do NOT offer it upfront. Wait until a question would genuinely be clearer shown than told — a real mockup / layout / diagram question, not merely a UI topic. The first time that happens, offer it then for consent using the AskUserQuestion tool. This offer MUST be its own message. Do not combine it with clarifying questions, context summaries, or any other content. If they decline, continue text-only and don't offer again unless they raise it.

{
  "questions": [{
    "question": "This next part might be easier to show than describe. I can put together mockups, diagrams, and comparisons in a web browser as we go. This feature is still new and can be token-intensive. Want me to? (Requires opening a local URL)",
    "header": "Visual",
    "options": [
      {"label": "Yes, use visuals", "description": "Open a browser companion for mockups and diagrams during brainstorming"},
      {"label": "No, text only", "description": "Continue with text-based brainstorming in the terminal"}
    ],
    "multiSelect": false
  }]
}

Wait for the user's response before continuing. If they decline, proceed with text-only brainstorming.

Per-question decision: Even after the user accepts, decide FOR EACH QUESTION whether to use the browser or the terminal. The test: would the user understand this better by seeing it than reading it?

• Use the browser for content that IS visual — mockups, wireframes, layout comparisons, architecture diagrams, side-by-side visual designs
• Use the terminal for content that is text — requirements questions, conceptual choices, tradeoff lists, A/B/C/D text options, scope decisions

A question about a UI topic is not automatically a visual question. "What does personality mean in this context?" is a conceptual question — use the terminal. "Which wizard layout works better?" is a visual question — use the browser.

If they agree to the companion, read the detailed guide before proceeding: skills/brainstorming/visual-companion.md

Integration

Invokes:

• stress-test (optional) — after spec approval, before writing-plans. Offered when the design has significant complexity or risk.
• writing-plans — terminal state. The only implementation skill brainstorming invokes.