Ideation Skill

Optional phase. Ideation is useful for complex or vague ideas, but not required. If the idea is already clear — you can proceed directly to /prd.

Package the user's raw idea into a structured Idea Brief — maximum 100 lines. Idea Brief is NOT a PRD. It's a "napkin sketch" that formalizes What and Why, without touching How.

Instructions

1. Read @docs/system-context.md if it exists — understand what already exists in the system
2. Read @docs/discovery/INDEX.md if it exists — determine the next iteration number (NN)
3. Ask the user up to 5 clarifying questions in Mom Test style:
   • What problem are we solving? Who faces it?
   • What does the user currently do instead?
   • What are the constraints (technical, time, budget)?
   • What is definitely NOT in scope?
   • How will we know it worked? (success metrics)
4. Generate a slug from the idea title — short, hyphenated, lowercase, English only
   • Example: "Article Reading Feature" → article-reading
   • Example: "User Authentication" → user-auth
5. Create the iteration folder first: docs/discovery/NN-<slug>/
   • Example: docs/discovery/01-article-reading/
   • Example: docs/discovery/02-user-auth/
6. Generate Idea Brief content using the template
7. Save as docs/discovery/NN-<slug>/idea-brief.md (INSIDE the folder, not next to it!)
8. Create or update docs/discovery/INDEX.md — add a new row with status Discovery

Critical: Folder Structure

CORRECT structure:

docs/discovery/
├── INDEX.md
└── 01-article-reading/      ← folder for iteration
    └── idea-brief.md        ← file inside folder

WRONG structure (don't do this):

docs/discovery/
├── INDEX.md
└── 01-idea-brief.md         ← WRONG! No folder created

Important

• Idea Brief must be less than 100 lines
• Don't go into implementation details — that's the PRD's job
• If system-context exists, consider what's already implemented
• Slug must be short, hyphenated, lowercase, English (e.g.: article-processing, user-auth)
• Always create the folder first, then save idea-brief.md inside it

Supporting files

• templates/idea-brief.md — Idea Brief template