Capture New Idea

Skill Usage Announcement

MANDATORY: When using this skill, announce it at the start with:

🔧 Using Skill: capture-new-idea | [brief purpose based on context]

Example:

🔧 Using Skill: capture-new-idea | Capturing user's feature suggestion

This creates an audit trail showing which skills were applied during the session.

Purpose

This skill captures user ideas exactly as stated, without interpretation, enhancement, or reformulation. Ideas are stored in .wrangler/ideas/ directory for future consideration and refinement.

Core Principle

PRESERVE USER'S EXACT WORDING - Do not:

• Rephrase or enhance the idea
• Add technical details
• Interpret what the user "meant to say"
• Convert to requirements or specifications
• Add implementation suggestions

The idea artifact type exists to capture raw thoughts before they undergo refinement into specifications or issues.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when the user:

• Suggests a feature or improvement casually
• Mentions "it would be nice if..."
• Says "I've been thinking about..."
• Proposes something without concrete details
• Shares a rough concept or vision
• Wants to "capture this for later"

DO NOT use for:

• Detailed feature requests (use writing-specifications skill)
• Bugs or issues (use create-new-issue skill)
• Concrete implementation tasks (use writing-plans skill)
• Ideas that are already refined into specs

Process

1. Extract User's Exact Words

Identify the core idea from the user's message. Use their exact phrasing where possible.

Example:

• User says: "It would be cool if users could export their data as PDF"
• Title: "Export data as PDF"
• Description: "It would be cool if users could export their data as PDF"

2. Create Idea Using MCP Tool

Call the issues_create MCP tool with:

issues_create({
  title: "Short, clear title from user's words",
  description: "User's idea in their own words (verbatim or lightly formatted)",
  type: "idea",
  status: "open",
  priority: "medium",  // Default unless user indicates urgency
  labels: [],  // Add contextual labels if obvious (e.g., ["ui", "export"])
  // Leave assignee, project, wranglerContext empty unless specified
})

3. Field Guidelines

title (required):

• Extract core concept from user's statement
• Keep concise (under 50 characters ideal)
• Use user's terminology, not technical jargon
• Example: "Dark mode option" not "Implement theme switching system"

description (required):

• Use user's exact words when possible
• If user provided multiple sentences, keep them all
• Add minimal formatting (line breaks, bullets) for readability only
• NO interpretation, NO enhancement, NO technical details
• Template: See IDEA_TEMPLATE.md

type: Always "idea"

status: Always "open" (ideas start as open until reviewed)

priority:

• "low" - Nice to have someday
• "medium" - Default for most ideas
• "high" - User explicitly emphasizes importance
• "critical" - Rarely used for ideas (only if user says "we really need this")

labels (optional):

• Add only obvious, non-interpretive labels
• Examples: ["ui"], ["mobile"], ["export"], ["performance"]
• Avoid speculative labels like ["backend"] unless user mentioned it

assignee, project, wranglerContext: Leave empty unless user explicitly specifies

Examples

Example 1: Simple Feature Idea

User says: "I think we should add keyboard shortcuts for common actions"

Create idea:

issues_create({
  title: "Keyboard shortcuts for common actions",
  description: "I think we should add keyboard shortcuts for common actions",
  type: "idea",
  status: "open",
  priority: "medium",
  labels: ["ui", "accessibility"]
})

Example 2: Performance Concern

User says: "The app feels slow when loading large datasets. Maybe we could add pagination or lazy loading?"

Create idea:

issues_create({
  title: "Improve performance with large datasets",
  description: `The app feels slow when loading large datasets. Maybe we could add pagination or lazy loading?`,
  type: "idea",
  status: "open",
  priority: "medium",
  labels: ["performance"]
})

Example 3: High Priority Idea

User says: "We really need offline support - customers keep asking for it and it's affecting sales"

Create idea:

issues_create({
  title: "Offline support",
  description: "We really need offline support - customers keep asking for it and it's affecting sales",
  type: "idea",
  status: "open",
  priority: "high",
  labels: ["feature"]
})

Example 4: Vague Concept

User says: "What if we made the UI more playful?"

Create idea:

issues_create({
  title: "Make UI more playful",
  description: "What if we made the UI more playful?",
  type: "idea",
  status: "open",
  priority: "low",
  labels: ["ui", "design"]
})

What Happens to Ideas

Ideas stored in .wrangler/ideas/ can later be:

1. Refined into specifications - Use writing-specifications skill to develop the idea
2. Converted to issues - Use issues_update to change type: "idea" to type: "issue"
3. Archived - Close or delete ideas that are no longer relevant
4. Grouped - Add project field to group related ideas

Anti-Patterns

DON'T enhance the user's idea:

// ❌ WRONG - Adding details not mentioned by user
issues_create({
  title: "Implement OAuth2 authentication with JWT tokens",
  description: "Add OAuth2 authentication using industry-standard JWT tokens with refresh token rotation...",
  type: "idea"
})

// ✅ CORRECT - User's actual words
issues_create({
  title: "Better login system",
  description: "Users are complaining about having to log in too often",
  type: "idea"
})

DON'T convert to requirements:

// ❌ WRONG - Turning idea into requirements
issues_create({
  title: "Search functionality",
  description: `Requirements:
- Full-text search across all fields
- Real-time results
- Autocomplete suggestions
- Filter by date range`,
  type: "idea"
})

// ✅ CORRECT - Keeping it as an idea
issues_create({
  title: "Better search",
  description: "It's hard to find things - we need better search",
  type: "idea"
})

Template Reference

See IDEA_TEMPLATE.md for the structure of idea descriptions.

Verification

After creating the idea:

1. Confirm the idea was created successfully
2. Note the ID assigned (e.g., "000042")
3. Inform user: "Captured your idea as #000042 in .wrangler/ideas/"
4. DO NOT start implementing or planning - ideas are for capture only

Transition to Implementation

When an idea is ready for implementation:

1. User decides to pursue the idea
2. Use writing-specifications skill to create a detailed spec (new artifact)
3. OR use issues_update to convert idea to issue
4. OR use writing-plans skill to break into implementation tasks

Ideas remain raw capture until deliberately refined.