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?"

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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" }.

1. 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