brainstorming

A guided method for turning an early software idea into a detailed design through questions, alternatives, and gradual agreement.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for shaping new features, products, or coding plans when the initial idea still needs clarification.
Why use it?
It helps uncover unclear goals, constraints, and success measures before implementation begins.

Command

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/hamr0/agentic-toolkit/brainstorming
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/hamr0/agentic-toolkit
Per session 46 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 524 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 92% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00046 $0.00524
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.00262
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00105
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00052

Measured 2d ago against content hash 41124a0d54a3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

brainstorming scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

92% identical to brainstorming — 7 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

ai/customize/skill-to-command/commands/brainstorming.md · 54 lines

What it actually says

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

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
Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 54 lines · 46 tokens per session scan A 41124a0d54a3

Subscribe to this mod's changes

brainstorming is a command published in the GitHub repository hamr0/agentic-toolkit (22 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 46 tokens to every session and 524 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 92% identical to brainstorming, differing in 7 lines, and is treated as a copy.