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