---
name: brainstorming
description: "You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation."
---

# 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.

<HARD-GATE>
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.
</HARD-GATE>

## 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 task for each of these items and complete them in order:

1. **Load project constraints** — read `{workspace}/.claude/rules/*.md` and `{workspace}/CLAUDE.md`, extract all coding standards and rules that apply to this task. These constraints MUST be reflected in the spec.
2. **Explore project context** — check files, docs, recent commits
3. **Offer visual companion** (if topic will involve visual questions) — this is its own message, not combined with a clarifying question. See the Visual Companion section below.
4. **Ask clarifying questions** — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
5. **Propose 2-3 approaches** — with trade-offs and your recommendation. Each approach MUST respect loaded constraints.
6. **Present design** — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section. Design MUST include a "Constraints" section listing applicable `.claude/rules` standards.
7. **Write design doc** — save to `docs/superpowers/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md` and commit. Spec MUST contain a constraints section.
8. **Transition to implementation** — invoke writing-plans skill to create implementation plan

## Process Flow

```dot
digraph brainstorming {
    "Explore project context" [shape=box];
    "Visual questions ahead?" [shape=diamond];
    "Offer Visual Companion\n(own message, no other content)" [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];
    "Invoke writing-plans skill" [shape=doublecircle];

    "Explore project context" -> "Visual questions ahead?";
    "Visual questions ahead?" -> "Offer Visual Companion\n(own message, no other content)" [label="yes"];
    "Visual questions ahead?" -> "Ask clarifying questions" [label="no"];
    "Offer Visual Companion\n(own message, no other content)" -> "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" -> "Invoke writing-plans skill";
}
```

**The terminal state is invoking writing-plans.** Do NOT invoke frontend-design, mcp-builder, or any other implementation skill. The ONLY skill you invoke after brainstorming is writing-plans.

## 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, but open-ended is fine too
- Only one question per message - if a topic needs more exploration, break it into multiple questions
- Focus on understanding: purpose, constraints, success criteria

## Scope Control — 分而治之

<HARD-LIMIT>
A single spec MUST NOT exceed these limits. If it does, decompose into sub-specs BEFORE writing the spec.
</HARD-LIMIT>

| 指标 | 硬性上限 | 超了怎么办 |
|------|---------|-----------|
| 涉及的新文件数 | ≤ 8 个 | 拆成多个子项目，每个独立 spec |
| 修改的现有文件数 | ≤ 10 个 | 按模块拆分，每个模块一个 spec |
| 实现步骤估算 | ≤ 20 步 | 里程碑拆分，每个里程碑一个 spec |
| 涉及独立模块数 | ≤ 3 个 | 按模块拆成子项目 |

**拆分判断原则：**
- 如果一个改动需要同时理解 3 个以上不相关的模块 → 太大了，拆
- 如果实现某个部分不影响其他部分 → 独立成子项目
- 如果不确定是否需要拆 → 大概率需要拆
- **宁可拆多了（每个子项目 3-5 步），也不要一个巨型 spec（20+ 步）**

**拆分后的执行顺序：**
1. 列出所有子项目及其依赖关系
2. 从最底层的子项目开始（没有依赖或依赖最少的先做）
3. 每个子项目独立走 brainstorming → spec → plan → execute 循环
4. 前一个子项目完成后，再开始下一个

**Exploring approaches:**

- Propose 2-3 different approaches with trade-offs
- Present options conversationally with your recommendation and reasoning
- Lead with your recommended option and explain why

**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
- Ask after each section whether it looks right so far
- 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 `docs/superpowers/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md`
  - (User preferences for spec location override this default)
- Spec MUST include a **Constraints** section listing all applicable rules from `.claude/rules/*.md` and `CLAUDE.md`
- Use elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely skill if available
- Commit the design document to git

**Spec Review Loop:**
After writing the spec document:

1. Dispatch spec-document-reviewer subagent (see spec-document-reviewer-prompt.md)
2. If Issues Found: fix, re-dispatch, repeat until Approved
3. If loop exceeds 5 iterations, surface to human for guidance

**Implementation:**

- Invoke the writing-plans skill to create a detailed implementation plan
- Do NOT invoke any other skill. writing-plans is the next step.

## 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:** When you anticipate that upcoming questions will involve visual content (mockups, layouts, diagrams), offer it once for consent:
> "Some of what we're working on might be easier to explain if I can show it to you in a web browser. I can put together mockups, diagrams, comparisons, and other visuals as we go. This feature is still new and can be token-intensive. Want to try it? (Requires opening a local URL)"

**This offer MUST be its own message.** Do not combine it with clarifying questions, context summaries, or any other content. The message should contain ONLY the offer above and nothing else. 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`
