tkstang/oat-idea-new

New Idea

Create a new idea directory, scaffold a discovery document, verify setup, and hand off to oat-idea-ideate for brainstorming.

Progress Indicators (User-Facing)

• Print a phase banner once at start using horizontal separators, e.g.:

  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ OAT ▸ NEW IDEA [project] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

  Replace [project] with [global] when operating at user level.

• Before multi-step work, print step indicators, e.g.:

  • [1/4] Validating idea name…
  • [2/4] Scaffolding idea directory…
  • [3/4] Updating backlog + scratchpad…
  • [4/4] Handing off to ideation…

Process

Step 0: Resolve Ideas Level

Determine whether to operate at project level or user (global) level.

Resolution order:

1. If $ARGUMENTS contains --global → use user level
2. If .oat/config.local.json has activeIdea pointing to a valid directory → use project level
3. If ~/.oat/config.json has activeIdea pointing to a valid directory → use user level
4. If BOTH .oat/ideas/ AND ~/.oat/ideas/ exist → ask: "Ideas exist at both project and user level. Where should this idea go?" options: "Project (.oat/ideas/)" / "Global (~/.oat/ideas/)"
5. If .oat/ideas/ exists → use project level
6. If ~/.oat/ideas/ exists → use user level
7. Otherwise → ask: "Project-level or global (user-level) ideas?"

Set variables:

| Variable | Project Level | User Level | | ---------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------ | | IDEAS_ROOT | .oat/ideas | ~/.oat/ideas | | TEMPLATES_ROOT | .oat/templates/ideas | ~/.oat/templates/ideas |

Step 1: Get Idea Name

If not provided in $ARGUMENTS, ask the user for an idea name.

Validation: Slug format only — alphanumeric, dashes, and underscores. No spaces or special characters.

Step 2: Check for Existing Idea

test -d "{IDEAS_ROOT}/$IDEA_NAME"

If exists: Tell the user this idea already exists and suggest: "Run the oat-idea-ideate skill to resume brainstorming on it." Stop here unless they want a different name.

Step 3: Initialize Ideas Directory

Create the ideas directory structure if it doesn't exist:

mkdir -p "{IDEAS_ROOT}/$IDEA_NAME"

If {IDEAS_ROOT}/backlog.md doesn't exist, copy from template:

• Source: {TEMPLATES_ROOT}/ideas-backlog.md
• Target: {IDEAS_ROOT}/backlog.md

If {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md doesn't exist, copy from template:

• Source: {TEMPLATES_ROOT}/ideas-scratchpad.md
• Target: {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md

Step 4: Scaffold Discovery Document

Copy template and apply replacements:

• Source: {TEMPLATES_ROOT}/idea-discovery.md
• Target: {IDEAS_ROOT}/$IDEA_NAME/discovery.md

Replacements:

• {Idea Name} → actual idea name (title case from slug)
• YYYY-MM-DD → today's date (ISO format)

Step 5: Update Backlog

Add an entry to {IDEAS_ROOT}/backlog.md under the Active Brainstorming section:

- **{idea-name}** — {placeholder: to be filled during brainstorming} _(Created: YYYY-MM-DD)_

Step 6: Check Scratchpad

Read {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md and look for an unchecked entry matching the idea name.

If found, check it off and append a note. Preserve any nested bullet notes beneath the entry:

- [x] **{idea-name}** - {original note} _(YYYY-MM-DD)_ → started (`{IDEAS_ROOT}/{idea-name}/`)
  - {preserved quick note 1}
  - {preserved quick note 2}

Step 7: Set Active Idea Pointer

Write the active idea path to config:

oat config set activeIdea "{IDEAS_ROOT}/{idea-name}"

Step 8: Verify and Hand Off

Verify all success criteria are met, then tell the user:

Idea "{Idea Name}" created successfully.

Level:     {project | global}
Directory: {IDEAS_ROOT}/{idea-name}/
Backlog:   {IDEAS_ROOT}/backlog.md (entry added)
Active:    config activeIdea (set)

Starting brainstorming...

Then immediately invoke the oat-idea-ideate skill (located at .agents/skills/oat-idea-ideate/SKILL.md) to begin the first brainstorming session. Read that skill file and follow its process from Step 1. The ideate skill owns all conversational brainstorming behavior — do not duplicate it here.

Success Criteria

• ✅ {IDEAS_ROOT}/{idea-name}/ directory exists
• ✅ discovery.md scaffolded with correct name and date
• ✅ {IDEAS_ROOT}/backlog.md exists and includes the new idea
• ✅ {IDEAS_ROOT}/scratchpad.md exists (initialized if first idea)
• ✅ activeIdea config value points to the new idea
• ✅ oat-idea-ideate skill invoked and brainstorming started