ce:brainstorm

ce:brainstorm is a skill for Claude Code from gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi. It costs 106 tokens per session (3,785 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A collaborative workflow for exploring a feature idea and writing a requirements document before planning its implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to discuss options, clarify scope, challenge assumptions, and document product decisions for later implementation planning.
Why use it?
It helps settle what should be built, why it matters, and what success means before coding begins.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: argument-hint in frontmatter. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md; names the AskUserQuestion tool; mentions Claude Code.

Part of the compound-engineering plugin — 41 skills, 1 MCP server shipped together

Good fit Use it to discuss options, clarify scope, challenge assumptions, and document product decisions for later implementation planning.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/ce-brainstorm
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.

Any agent
npx skills add gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi --skill ce-brainstorm
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install compound-engineering, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 41 skills, 1 MCP server.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for ce:brainstorm

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/ce-brainstorm.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/ce-brainstorm)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/ce-brainstorm"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/ce-brainstorm.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 106 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,785 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found 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 5.1 $0.00106 $0.03785
Opus 5 $0.00053 $0.01893
Sonnet 5 $0.00021 $0.00757
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00379

Measured 8d ago against content hash 3748a042c509, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ce:brainstorm scanned grade A with 1 finding 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 8d 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.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

RESPONSE=$(curl -s -X POST https://www.proofeditor.ai/share/markdown \
plugins/compound-engineering/skills/ce-brainstorm/SKILL.md · 336 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 336 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Brainstorm a Feature or Improvement

Note: The current year is 2026. Use this when dating requirements documents.

Brainstorming helps answer WHAT to build through collaborative dialogue. It precedes /ce:plan, which answers HOW to build it.

The durable output of this workflow is a requirements document. In other workflows this might be called a lightweight PRD or feature brief. In compound engineering, keep the workflow name brainstorm, but make the written artifact strong enough that planning does not need to invent product behavior, scope boundaries, or success criteria.

This skill does not implement code. It explores, clarifies, and documents decisions for later planning or execution.

Core Principles

  1. Assess scope first - Match the amount of ceremony to the size and ambiguity of the work.
  2. Be a thinking partner - Suggest alternatives, challenge assumptions, and explore what-ifs instead of only extracting requirements.
  3. Resolve product decisions here - User-facing behavior, scope boundaries, and success criteria belong in this workflow. Detailed implementation belongs in planning.
  4. Keep implementation out of the requirements doc by default - Do not include libraries, schemas, endpoints, file layouts, or code-level design unless the brainstorm itself is inherently about a technical or architectural change.
  5. Right-size the artifact - Simple work gets a compact requirements document or brief alignment. Larger work gets a fuller document. Do not add ceremony that does not help planning.
  6. Apply YAGNI to carrying cost, not coding effort - Prefer the simplest approach that delivers meaningful value. Avoid speculative complexity and hypothetical future-proofing, but low-cost polish or delight is worth including when its ongoing cost is small and easy to maintain.

Interaction Rules

  1. Ask one question at a time - Do not batch several unrelated questions into one message.
  2. Prefer single-select multiple choice - Use single-select when choosing one direction, one priority, or one next step.
  3. Use multi-select rarely and intentionally - Use it only for compatible sets such as goals, constraints, non-goals, or success criteria that can all coexist. If prioritization matters, follow up by asking which selected item is primary.
  4. Use the platform's question tool when available - When asking the user a question, prefer the platform's blocking question tool if one exists (AskUserQuestion in Claude Code, request_user_input in Codex, ask_user in Gemini). Otherwise, present numbered options in chat and wait for the user's reply before proceeding.

Read the full file on GitHub · 336 lines

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. 8d ago First seen · 336 lines · 106 tokens per session scan A 3748a042c509

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ce:brainstorm is a skill published in the GitHub repository gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi (51 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 106 tokens to every session and 3,785 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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