Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

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 and get user approval.

Anti-Pattern: "This Is Too Simple To Need A Design"

Every project goes through this process. A todo list, a single-function utility, a config change — all of them. "Simple" projects are where unexamined assumptions cause the most wasted work. The design can be short (a few sentences for truly simple projects), but you MUST present it and get approval.

Checklist

You MUST create a task for each of these items and complete them in order:

1. Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
2. Offer visual companion (if topic will involve visual questions) — this is its own message, not combined with a clarifying question
3. Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
4. Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
5. Present design — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
6. Write design doc — save to docs/superpowers/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md and commit
7. Spec self-review — quick inline check for placeholders, contradictions, ambiguity, scope
8. User reviews written spec — ask user to review the spec file before proceeding
9. Transition to implementation — invoke writing-plans skill to create implementation plan

The Process

Understanding the idea:

• Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
• Before asking detailed questions, assess scope: if the request describes multiple independent subsystems, flag this immediately
• For appropriately-scoped projects, 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
• 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
• Scale each section to its complexity: a few sentences if straightforward, up to 200-300 words if nuanced
• 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

Design for isolation and clarity:

• Break the system into smaller units that each have one clear purpose
• For each unit, you should be able to answer: what does it do, how do you use it, and what does it depend on?
• Smaller, well-bounded units are also easier to work with

Working in existing codebases:

• Explore the current structure before proposing changes. Follow existing patterns.
• Where existing code has problems that affect the work, include targeted improvements as part of the design
• Don't propose unrelated refactoring. Stay focused on what serves the current goal.

After the Design

Documentation:

• Write the validated design (spec) to docs/superpowers/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
• Commit the design document to git

Spec Self-Review: After writing the spec document, look at it with fresh eyes:

1. Placeholder scan: Any "TBD", "TODO", incomplete sections, or vague requirements? Fix them.
2. Internal consistency: Do any sections contradict each other?
3. Scope check: Is this focused enough for a single implementation plan?
4. Ambiguity check: Could any requirement be interpreted two different ways?

Fix any issues inline. No need to re-review — just fix and move on.

User Review Gate: After the spec review loop passes, ask the user to review the written spec before proceeding:

"Spec written and committed to <path>. Please review it and let me know if you want to make any changes before we start writing out the implementation plan."

Wait for the user's response. Only proceed once the user approves.

Implementation:

• Invoke the writing-plans skill to create a detailed implementation plan
• Do NOT invoke any other skill. writing-plans is the next step.

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, get approval before moving on
• Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense