Brainstorm Skill

Purpose

Refines rough ideas and requirements into fully-formed designs through collaborative questioning, alternative exploration, and incremental validation using the Socratic method.

Tier

Tier 0 - Pre-Launch Foundation

When to Use

• Starting new features or projects
• Converting vague requirements into concrete tasks
• Exploring design alternatives
• Identifying potential issues early
• Clarifying ambiguous requirements

Process

1. Requirement Analysis

• Parse the initial request
• Identify key stakeholders
• Extract functional and non-functional requirements
• Determine success criteria

2. Socratic Questioning

Apply iterative questioning to refine:

• What: What exactly needs to be built?
• Why: Why is this needed? What problem does it solve?
• Who: Who are the users? What are their needs?
• How: How should it work? What are the alternatives?
• When: When is it needed? What are the milestones?
• Where: Where will it run? What are the constraints?

3. Alternative Exploration

• Generate 3-5 alternative approaches
• Evaluate pros and cons of each
• Consider technical debt implications
• Assess scalability requirements

4. Validation

• Check against existing patterns
• Verify technical feasibility
• Ensure alignment with quality standards
• Confirm budget and timeline constraints

5. Output Generation

Produces refined requirements including:

• Clear user stories
• Technical constraints
• Quality criteria
• Risk assessment
• Recommended approach

Input Format

request: "Natural language description of the idea"
context: "Optional background information"
constraints: "Any known limitations"

Output Format

refined_requirements:
  user_stories:
    - as_a: "User role"
      i_want: "Feature/capability"
      so_that: "Business value"

  technical_requirements:
    - category: "Frontend/Backend/Data"
      requirement: "Specific technical need"
      priority: "Must/Should/Could"

  alternatives_considered:
    - approach: "Description"
      pros: ["List of advantages"]
      cons: ["List of disadvantages"]
      recommendation: "Yes/No with reasoning"

  quality_criteria:
    - metric: "Measurable criteria"
      threshold: "Minimum acceptable value"

  risks:
    - risk: "Description"
      impact: "High/Medium/Low"
      mitigation: "Strategy to address"

  recommended_approach:
    summary: "Recommended solution"
    justification: "Why this approach"
    next_steps: ["Ordered list of actions"]

Integration Points

• Output feeds into: write-plan skill
• Receives context from: User input, existing documentation
• Updates: ai-state/knowledge/requirements.md

Quality Standards

• All requirements must be testable
• User stories must follow standard format
• Technical requirements must specify measurability
• At least 3 alternatives must be considered
• Risk assessment is mandatory

Example Usage

/brainstorm "Create a payment processing system for our fintech app"

This will:

1. Analyze payment processing requirements
2. Question assumptions about payment types, currencies, compliance
3. Explore alternatives (Stripe, PayPal, custom solution)
4. Validate against fintech regulations
5. Output refined requirements ready for planning

Common Patterns

• MVP First: Always identify the minimum viable version
• Progressive Enhancement: Plan for future scaling
• Fail Fast: Identify deal-breakers early
• User-Centric: Focus on user value, not technical elegance

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

• Skipping alternatives analysis
• Accepting vague requirements
• Ignoring non-functional requirements
• Not considering technical debt
• Missing risk assessment

Metrics

• Time from idea to refined requirements: < 30 minutes
• Requirement clarity score: > 8/10
• Alternative approaches generated: >= 3
• Risk identification rate: 100%