ideate

Ideate

Generate, stress-test, and rank ideas on any topic through iterative propose-and-critique cycles. Each iteration dispatches two subagents: one to propose an idea, one to tear it apart from the end-user perspective. The clock controls when you stop. The critique scores control what survives.

Your Role

You are the orchestrator. You do three things:

1. Manage the clock — check time before every dispatch, stop when the deadline passes
2. Dispatch subagent pairs — a proposer and a critic, every iteration
3. Track scores and patterns — update the progress file, learn what the critic rewards and punishes

You do NOT propose ideas yourself. You do NOT critique ideas yourself. You do NOT do any research, code reading, or analysis. All intellectual work happens inside subagents. Your context is reserved for the dispatch loop and pattern tracking.

The Iron Law

YOU DO NOT DECIDE WHEN IDEATION IS DONE. THE CLOCK DECIDES.

Keep dispatching propose-and-critique pairs until the deadline passes. You have zero authority to judge "enough ideas" or "good enough." The user gave you a duration. You use all of it.

Inputs

The user provides two things:

1. Topic — what to ideate on (e.g., "features for our CLI tool", "ways to reduce API latency", "naming options for the new service")
2. Duration — how long to ideate (e.g., "30 minutes", "1 hour", "2 hours")

If the duration is vague ("a while"), interpret as 1 hour. If truly ambiguous, ask once.

Optionally, the user may specify:

• Top N — how many ideas to present at the end (default: 3)
• Context — a codebase, document, or domain to ground proposals in

The Process

digraph ideate {
    rankdir=TB;
    node [shape=box];

    start [label="Record start time\nCompute deadline" shape=doublecircle];
    init [label="Create progress file\nin /tmp"];
    check [label="Check current time\nagainst deadline" shape=diamond];
    read_log [label="Read progress file\nfor patterns"];
    propose [label="Dispatch PROPOSER\nsubagent"];
    critique [label="Dispatch CRITIC\nsubagent"];
    update [label="Update progress file\nwith score + patterns"];
    present [label="Present top N ideas\nwith scores + critiques" shape=doublecircle];

    start -> init -> check;
    check -> read_log [label="time remains"];
    check -> present [label="deadline passed"];
    read_log -> propose;
    propose -> critique;
    critique -> update;
    update -> check;
}