brainstorm

To create an approved feature design before coding, use a spec-first brainstorming process that guides requirements discovery, proposes multiple approaches with trade-offs, and enforces a hard gate blocking implementation until explicit user approval is granted.

Documenting architecture trade-offs is best handled by generating a structured design document saved to docs/plans, which records 2-3 alternative proposals alongside a concerns checklist to ensure all constraints are reviewed before implementation begins.

You can enforce a design approval gate by conducting a section-by-section review of the feature design, explicitly blocking any downstream implementation work until the user has reviewed and approved every section of the generated design document.

This design documentation workflow explicitly skips bug fixes with obvious root causes and non-design configuration updates, focusing solely on new feature creation, behavior changes, and spec-first pipeline kickoff.

To integrate a concerns checklist into your feature design, the workflow reads casaflow.config.md to identify applicable concerns, walks through each item with clear N/A marking, and explicitly includes scoped items before finalizing the design plan.

After a feature design is approved in a spec-first workflow, the process ends by invoking a plan skill, transitioning directly from the completed and user-approved design document into the implementation planning phase.