Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs
Overview
Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs 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 in small sections (200-300 words), checking after each section whether it looks right so far.
The Process
Understanding the idea:
- Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
- 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:
- Generate 6 possible approaches with trade-offs. Approaches should each include a text and a numeric probability. Please sample responses at random from the [full distribution / tails of the distribution], in such way that:
- For first 3 responses aim for high probability, over 0.80 - For last 3 responses aim for diversity - explore different regions of the solution space, such that the probability of each response is less than 0.10
- 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
- Break it into sections of 200-300 words
- 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
After the Design
Documentation:
- Write the validated design to
.specs/plans/<topic>.design.md - Use docs:write-concisely skill if available
- Commit the design document to git
Implementation (if continuing):
- Ask: "Ready to set up for implementation?"
- Use git:create-worktree to create isolated workspace
- Use sdd:add-task to create task file for target approach
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 in sections, validate each
- Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense