brainstorming

A questioning and communication guide for complex software work, new features, updates, or unclear requests. It uses targeted questions to clarify the problem, users, constraints, and required scope before implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to clarify feature requests, shape requirements, identify must-have work, communicate progress, and handle implementation risks.
Why use it?
It prevents coding against incorrect assumptions and exposes decisions that could change the design or amount of work.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/diillson/chatcli/brainstorming
Any agent
npx skills add diillson/chatcli --skill brainstorming
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/diillson/chatcli

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 33 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,094 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 88% 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 $0.00033 $0.01094
Opus 5 $0.00016 $0.00547
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00219
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00109

Measured 2d ago against content hash 1a501a9fea86, 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

88% identical to brainstorming — 19 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.

.agent/skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md · 164 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 164 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Brainstorming & Communication Protocol

MANDATORY: Use for complex/vague requests, new features, updates.


🛑 SOCRATIC GATE (ENFORCEMENT)

When to Trigger

Pattern Action
"Build/Create/Make [thing]" without details 🛑 ASK 3 questions
Complex feature or architecture 🛑 Clarify before implementing
Update/change request 🛑 Confirm scope
Vague requirements 🛑 Ask purpose, users, constraints

🚫 MANDATORY: 3 Questions Before Implementation

  1. STOP - Do NOT start coding
  2. ASK - Minimum 3 questions:
    • 🎯 Purpose: What problem are you solving?
    • 👥 Users: Who will use this?
    • 📦 Scope: Must-have vs nice-to-have?
  3. WAIT - Get response before proceeding

🧠 Dynamic Question Generation

⛔ NEVER use static templates. Read dynamic-questioning.md for principles.

Core Principles

Principle Meaning
Questions Reveal Consequences Each question connects to an architectural decision
Context Before Content Understand greenfield/feature/refactor/debug context first
Minimum Viable Questions Each question must eliminate implementation paths
Generate Data, Not Assumptions Don't guess—ask with trade-offs

Question Generation Process

1. Parse request → Extract domain, features, scale indicators
2. Identify decision points → Blocking vs. deferable
3. Generate questions → Priority: P0 (blocking) > P1 (high-leverage) > P2 (nice-to-have)
4. Format with trade-offs → What, Why, Options, Default

Question Format (MANDATORY)

### [PRIORITY] **[DECISION POINT]**

**Question:** [Clear question]

**Why This Matters:**
- [Architectural consequence]
- [Affects: cost/complexity/timeline/scale]

**Options:**
| Option | Pros | Cons | Best For |
|--------|------|------|----------|
| A | [+] | [-] | [Use case] |

**If Not Specified:** [Default + rationale]

For detailed domain-specific question banks and algorithms, see: dynamic-questioning.md

Read the full file on GitHub · 164 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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 · 164 lines · 33 tokens per session scan A 1a501a9fea86

Subscribe to this mod's changes

brainstorming is a skill published in the GitHub repository diillson/chatcli (89 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 33 tokens to every session and 1,094 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 88% identical to brainstorming, differing in 19 lines, and is treated as a copy.