denolfe/dotfiles/brainstorming

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs through natural collaborative dialogue.

Start by classifying how much process the request needs, then work through your path: understand the context, refine the idea, present a design, and get your human partner's approval.

Establish Shared Understanding

The outcome of brainstorming is an understanding your human partner can recognize and correct, grounded in what they want to accomplish.

1. Discover intent. Use the request and available context to identify

the intended outcome, who it is for, and what success looks like. When that information is missing, ask one focused question about purpose or intended use before proposing features or an approach. Knowing the app genre does not tell you why your partner wants it. Gathering missing requirements does not ask them to authorize the task again.

1. Write back your understanding. Summarize the intended outcome,

relevant constraints, and success criteria in a short note your partner can assess. Separate what they said from assumptions. Invite correction and incorporate their answer before treating this as the design brief.

1. Carry intent into the design. Preserve the agreed understanding in

the selected path's design artifact: the written spec for architectural work, or the in-chat design/probe for bounded work and spikes. Check proposed features and technical choices against that understanding.

When the request already supplies the purpose and constraints, reflect that understanding instead of asking the same questions again. Keep the note concise; its accuracy and the opportunity to correct it matter.

<HARD-GATE> Before taking any implementation action, including invoking an implementation skill, writing product code, scaffolding, installing product dependencies, or creating an external project, complete the selected path's prerequisites:

• Spike: the human partner approves the question and probe.
• Bounded: the human partner approves the short in-chat design.
• Architectural: the human partner reviews and approves the written spec,

then reviews the written implementation plan and selects its execution method. Conversational design approval only permits writing the spec; written-spec approval only permits invoking writing-plans.

Auto mode does NOT waive this gate. Auto mode reduces clarifying questions on routine decisions; presenting a design and awaiting approval is not a routine decision. If you are in auto mode and reach this gate, you still stop and ask.

Before the first Write/Edit/implementation-skill call that follows brainstorming, you MUST state in plain text: `Design approved by user in message: "[exact quoted text from user]"`. If you cannot produce a direct quote of the user approving the whole design (not a section, not a refinement, not inferred agreement), you have not been approved — return to the approval step.

A reply approves the stage actually presented. Approval of an idea or feature scope does not approve artifacts that do not exist yet. Resume at the earliest incomplete stage; do not turn one approval into permission to skip the rest of the selected path. Read-only project exploration is allowed while those prerequisites remain incomplete. </HARD-GATE>

Three Paths

Before your first question, classify the request and say the classification out loud — "this looks bounded, so I'll present a short design here rather than write a spec" — so your human partner can override it:

• Spike — a feasibility question ("can we...", "is it possible...",

"quick and dirty is fine") whose output is an answer, not code you keep. Present the question and what you'll try in 2-3 sentences, get a nod, then find out as cheaply as correctness allows. No design doc, no spec file. Report findings as a recommendation; anything you built stays labeled throwaway.

• Bounded — a well-scoped change to code that already exists in

this repo: a new flag, a small endpoint, a one-file fix. Understanding the kind of app is not enough — bounded means the flow you are changing is already here to read. If there is no existing flow to change, the task is not bounded. Ask the clarifying questions that matter, present a short design IN CHAT (a few sentences to a few short paragraphs), and STOP. Implementation starts only after your human partner says yes to that design — a bounded task's approval is as hard a gate as an architectural one. No spec file, no implementation plan document.

• Architectural — new projects, new subsystems, changes that

restructure how components fit together or alter interfaces others depend on. Follow the full process: questions, approaches, sectioned design, written spec, then the writing-plans skill.

When in doubt between two paths, take the heavier one. The ratchet is one-way: hidden complexity discovered mid-task upgrades the path — stop, say so, and step up. Nothing downgrades mid-task.

Anti-Pattern: "Too Simple To Need Approval"

Every path ends with your human partner approving the required design before implementation. A bounded change may need only two sentences in chat. A new todo-list project is architectural and requires the written spec and planning handoffs. Scale the artifact to the selected path; complete that path's reviews before implementation.

Red Flags

Checklist

Classify first, announce the path, then create a task for each item on your path and complete them in order.

Spike:

1. Explore project context — enough to frame the probe
2. Present question + probe plan — 2-3 sentences
3. Get approval — a nod is enough
4. Investigate — as cheaply as correctness allows
5. Report findings — a recommendation; label anything built as throwaway

Bounded:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
2. Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, the ones that matter
3. Present short design in chat — approach, files touched, testing
4. Get approval — STOP and wait for an explicit yes; presenting the design and starting in the same breath is skipping the gate
5. Implement — proceed with the normal development workflow (TDD applies); no plan document

Architectural:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
2. Offer the visual companion just-in-time — NOT upfront. The first time a question would genuinely be clearer shown than described, offer it then (its own message); on approval its browser tab opens for you. If no visual question ever arises, never offer it. See the Visual Companion section below.
3. Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
4. Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
5. Present design — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
6. Write design doc — save to 2-DESIGN.md in the current task folder and commit
7. Spec self-review — quick inline check for placeholders, contradictions, ambiguity, scope (see below)
8. User reviews written spec — ask user to review the spec file before proceeding
9. Transition to implementation — invoke writing-plans skill to create implementation plan

Process Flow

digraph brainstorming {
    "Classify: spike / bounded / architectural" [shape=diamond];
    "Present question + probe (2-3 sentences)" [shape=box];
    "Ask clarifying questions (bounded)" [shape=box];
    "Present short design in chat" [shape=box];
    "Human approves?" [shape=diamond];
    "Investigate; report recommendation" [shape=doublecircle];
    "Implement via normal workflow (no plan doc)" [shape=doublecircle];
    "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 design doc" [shape=box];
    "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)" [shape=box];
    "User reviews spec?" [shape=diamond];
    "Invoke writing-plans skill" [shape=doublecircle];
    "Hidden complexity? Upgrade path" [shape=box];
 
    "Classify: spike / bounded / architectural" -> "Present question + probe (2-3 sentences)" [label="spike"];
    "Classify: spike / bounded / architectural" -> "Ask clarifying questions (bounded)" [label="bounded"];
    "Classify: spike / bounded / architectural" -> "Explore project context" [label="architectural"];
    "Present question + probe (2-3 sentences)" -> "Human approves?";
    "Ask clarifying questions (bounded)" -> "Present short design in chat";
    "Present short design in chat" -> "Human approves?";
    "Human approves?" -> "Investigate; report recommendation" [label="spike: yes"];
    "Human approves?" -> "Implement via normal workflow (no plan doc)" [label="bounded: yes"];
    "Hidden complexity? Upgrade path" -> "Classify: spike / bounded / architectural";
    "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 design doc" [label="yes"];
    "Write design doc" -> "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)";
    "Spec self-review\n(fix inline)" -> "User reviews spec?";
    "User reviews spec?" -> "Write design doc" [label="changes requested"];
    "User reviews spec?" -> "Invoke writing-plans skill" [label="approved"];
}

Terminal states are path-bound. Architectural: the ONLY skill you invoke after brainstorming is writing-plans — never frontend-design, mcp-builder, or any other implementation skill. Bounded: after approval, implementation proceeds directly through the normal development workflow; no plan document. Spike: the terminal state is a reported recommendation.

The Process