abogoyavlensky/brainstorming

Brainstorming Ideas Into Plans

Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and implementation plans 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, write the plan, 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>

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 plan document — follow plan-format-guide.md for structure; save to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md and commit
   • add to git: git add -N docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md
6. Plan review loop — dispatch a subagent (see plan-document-reviewer-prompt.md) with precisely crafted review context (never your session history); fix issues and re-dispatch until approved (max 3 iterations, then surface to human)
7. Commit plan - commit the plan document to git with a clear one-line message without attribution
8. Transition to implementation — invoke /executing-plans skill to implement the plan

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 plan, 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 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

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.

Writing the Plan

After the design is approved, write the implementation plan document.

• Follow the format and structure in plan-format-guide.md
• Include the approved design in the plan - architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing strategy. The plan should be self-contained so the executor has full context.
• Map out the file structure first — which files will be created or modified
• Break work into bite-sized tasks with clear steps (test, implement, verify, commit)
• Describe what to implement clearly, but don't inline full code - the executor can write code from clear descriptions
• Exact file paths, exact commands, expected outputs
• Use /writing-clearly skill if available
• DRY, YAGNI, frequent commits

Plan Review Loop

After writing the plan document:

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

Review loop guidance:

• Same agent that wrote the plan fixes it (preserves context)
• Reviewers are advisory — explain disagreements if you believe feedback is incorrect

Execution Handoff

After the user approves the plan, offer execution choice:

"Plan committed. Want to implement it now?"

• If yes: Use /executing-plans skill
• If no: Stop and wait for user to trigger execution later

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
• Use /writing-clearly skill if available for all READMEs and docs