brainstorming

Brainstorming transforms early-stage concepts into fully-formed designs through structured questioning, alternative exploration, and incremental validation. It guides you through understanding requirements, proposing 2-3 architectural approaches with trade-offs, and producing a dated design document in docs/plans.

Present your design in small sections and gather feedback after each one to ensure continuous alignment. This approach catches misunderstandings early, prevents costly rework, and builds shared understanding of requirements, constraints, and success criteria before implementation begins.

Propose 2-3 distinct approaches, document trade-offs for each, and use Socratic questioning to evaluate fit against your requirements and constraints. This structured exploration ensures you've considered the solution space and chosen the best fit for your problem.

Use brainstorming before any new feature or project to refine initial ideas and prevent rework. It's most valuable when requirements are unclear, multiple solutions exist, or stakeholder alignment is needed—saving time and cost by validating design early.

Begin with a rough idea or problem statement. The Skill will guide you through one-question-at-a-time prompts to extract purpose, constraints, and success criteria, building the foundation for exploring alternatives and producing a comprehensive design document.