brainstorm

Brainstorm

Evaluate the current codebase and generate actionable suggestions that the user can take into /feature-interview for human/agent alignment, planning-destination triage, and follow-up specification or roadmap work.

Process

0. App Scope Resolution (Monorepo Support)

Before checking prerequisites, determine the app scope:

1. If $ARGUMENTS specifies an app name matching a subdirectory of research/, use it.
2. If research/ contains subdirectories (excluding files), list them and ask the user which app to target. If only one subdirectory exists, use it automatically.
3. If no subdirectories exist, proceed with flat structure (single-product mode).

When app scope {app} is active:

• Read/write research from research/{app}/ instead of research/
• Read/write specs from specs/{app}/ instead of specs/
• Also read research/icp.md (cross-app overview) for broader context

1. Understand the project: Read CLAUDE.md, README, package config, and key source files to understand what the project does, its architecture, tech stack, and current state.

2. Check existing plans and research: Read tasks/roadmap.md, tasks/todo.md, tasks/manual-todo.md, tasks/record-todo.md, tasks/recurring-todo.md (when they exist), and specs from specs/ (or spec.md) if they exist to understand work already planned, in progress, or deferred as advisory records — avoid suggesting things already covered. Read research/competitive-analysis.md (or research/{app}/competitive-analysis.md) if it exists — competitor gaps, market white space, and positioning weaknesses are high-signal inputs for ideation. Read research/customer-feedback.md (or research/{app}/customer-feedback.md) if it exists — "Wrong" and "New" findings are highest-signal ideation input (real user feedback that contradicts assumptions or reveals unmet needs). Read research/metrics.md (or research/{app}/metrics.md) if it exists — instrumentation gaps can generate ideas for tooling or observability improvements.

3. Analyse the codebase across these dimensions:

   Strategic / Product

   • New features: Capabilities that would make the project significantly more useful or valuable to its users — think beyond what exists today
   • New workflows: End-to-end flows or automation that the project could enable but doesn't yet
   • Product line expansion: If the project's core could serve adjacent use cases, new audiences, or spin off complementary products — suggest them
   • Integration opportunities: External tools, services, platforms, or APIs that would multiply the project's value

   Improvement

   • Missing capabilities: Features the project's architecture is set up for but doesn't yet offer
   • Pain points: Rough edges, inconsistencies, or manual steps that could be automated
   • Performance opportunities: Obvious bottlenecks or low-hanging optimisations
   • Developer experience: Build times, debugging ergonomics, onboarding friction

   Hygiene

   • Technical debt: Areas where the code has outgrown its original design
   • Testing gaps: Untested critical paths or missing test infrastructure
   • Security hardening: Areas where security posture could be improved

   Market Fit (only when research/icp.md (or research/{app}/icp.md), research/mvp-gap.md (or research/{app}/mvp-gap.md), or research/competitive-analysis.md (or research/{app}/competitive-analysis.md) exist)

   • ICP alignment: Features that directly address ICP pain points but are missing or incomplete
   • Journey gaps: Steps in the user or customer journey where the product loses them
   • Unaddressed MVP gaps: Gaps from research/mvp-gap.md (or research/{app}/mvp-gap.md) not yet tracked in roadmap or todo
   • Competitive white space: Features or capabilities that no competitor offers well — opportunities from research/competitive-analysis.md (or research/{app}/competitive-analysis.md) market gaps
   • Competitor leapfrog: Specific competitor weaknesses you could exploit, or table-stakes features competitors have that you lack
   • Positioning plays: Ideas that would sharpen differentiation against the competitive landscape

4. Scope: If $ARGUMENTS is provided, focus the analysis on that area. Otherwise, cover all dimensions.

Output

Append the suggestions to tasks/ideas.md (do not overwrite existing content). Also display them to the user. When app scope is active, prefix each suggestion with the app name.

Present suggestions grouped by effort level, with each suggestion framed as a topic ready to hand to /feature-interview:

Quick wins (hours)

• Suggestion title — One-line description of what and why. Start with: /feature-interview <topic>

Medium efforts (days)

• Suggestion title — One-line description of what and why. Start with: /feature-interview <topic>

Larger initiatives (weeks)

• Suggestion title — One-line description of what and why. Start with: /feature-interview <topic>

Constraints

• Each suggestion must be specific and actionable — not vague aspirations like "improve testing."
• Include the concrete signal from the codebase that motivates each suggestion (file, pattern, or metric).
• Provide the /feature-interview <topic> prompt the user can copy-paste to kick off planning.
• Limit to 3–5 suggestions per effort level to avoid overwhelming the user.
• Do not suggest changes that conflict with patterns established in CLAUDE.md.
• Do not repeat work already tracked in tasks/roadmap.md, tasks/todo.md, tasks/manual-todo.md, tasks/record-todo.md, tasks/recurring-todo.md, or specs/ (or specs/{app}/).

Alignment Page

When this skill produces durable deliverables (research, specs, plans, reports, prototypes, or any document output), build a full-depth HTML alignment page following ALIGNMENT-PAGE.md in this skill's directory. Output: alignment/brainstorm-{topic}.html.

Default Shipping Contract

Follow the shared shipping contract convention in CLAUDE.md.