Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Overview

Turn ideas into fully formed designs through natural collaborative dialogue. Understand the project context, ask questions one at a time, propose approaches, and produce an approved design doc.

Brainstorming ends when the design doc is approved and committed. What happens next is the caller's decision — this skill does not dictate the next step.

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. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
2. Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
3. Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
4. Present design — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
5. Write design doc — save to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md and commit

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 and commit design doc" [shape=box];
    "Done" [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 and commit design doc" [label="yes"];
    "Write and commit design doc" -> "Done";
}

The Process

Understanding the idea:

• Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
• 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

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

After the Design

• Write the validated design to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
• Use elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely skill if available
• Commit the design document to git
• You are done. Return control to the caller.

Next steps (for reference, not this skill's responsibility): The design doc feeds into /writing-plans for implementation planning, or directly into /software-forge if running the full lifecycle.

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