Brainstorming

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:

• Propose 2-3 different approaches with trade-offs
• 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 docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
• Use elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely skill if available
• Commit the design document to git
• Register in the per-repo .prime/ graph (see "Prime Indexing" below)

Prime Indexing: After writing the design doc, register it as a node so /create-prompt, create-plans, and future brainstorming sessions can recall it:

1. Before starting the dialogue (at the very beginning of the brainstorm, when the user's initial idea is known), call mcp__prime__prime_recall { text: <user's stated idea>, top_k: 5, depth: 1 } without node_type filter — surface ANY related prior work (brainstorms, plans, prompts) in this codebase. If matches above ~0.75 exist, mention them inline before asking the first question:

"Related prior work in this repo: docs/plans/2026-04-12-vault-design.md (similarity 0.82). Want me to read it first?"

2. mcp__prime__prime_add_node:

   • type: "brainstorm"
   • properties: { name: "<topic>-design", file: "docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md", topic: "<kebab-topic>", domain: <inferred>, created_at: <YYYY-MM-DD> }
   • Capture entity_id.

3. mcp__prime__prime_embed { id: <entity_id>, text: <validated design's one-liner + core architectural decisions, ~2–3 sentences> } — server embeds via in-process fastembed. Enables future brainstorming/create-prompt invocations to discover this design.

4. For each @path/to/file reference in the design body, ensure a file node exists (search by path, create if missing) and mcp__prime__prime_add_edge { source: <brainstorm>, target: <file>, relation: "references" }.

5. If this brainstorm refined or replaced an earlier design on the same topic, also mcp__prime__prime_add_edge { source: <new>, target: <prior>, relation: "supersedes" }.

Best-effort: Prime failures don't block git commit or implementation handoff. Requires allsource-prime ≥ 0.21.3.

Implementation (if continuing):

• Ask: "Ready to set up for implementation?"
• Use superpowers:using-git-worktrees to create isolated workspace
• Use superpowers:writing-plans to create detailed implementation plan

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