brainstorming

A discovery process for exploring a coding problem and producing a design document before implementation. It records the problem, constraints, possible approaches, and key decisions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when starting a new feature, comparing implementation approaches, learning the relevant codebase, or preparing a design for a later implementation plan.
Why use it?
It turns unclear feature requests into a shared understanding of what should be built and what success means. This reduces avoidable design changes during coding.

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/jpm1118/threadwork/brainstorming
Any agent
npx skills add JPM1118/Threadwork --skill brainstorming
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/JPM1118/Threadwork

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,399 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00000 $0.01399
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00700
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00280
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00140

Measured 2d ago against content hash 429035cefaa5, 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.

skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md · 266 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 266 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Brainstorming Skill

Explore a problem space and produce a design document that can inform implementation planning.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

  • Starting work on a new feature with unclear requirements
  • Exploring different implementation approaches
  • Need to understand existing code before planning changes
  • Want to document design decisions before coding

Purpose

Brainstorming is the discovery phase before planning. The output is a design document that:

  • Captures the problem being solved
  • Documents constraints and requirements
  • Explores implementation approaches
  • Makes key design decisions
  • Prepares for the planning phase

Skill Workflow

Step 1: Understand the Request

Clarify with the user:

  • What problem are we solving? (the "why")
  • What are the constraints? (time, compatibility, dependencies)
  • What does success look like? (acceptance criteria)
  • Are there existing patterns to follow? (codebase conventions)

Step 2: Explore the Codebase

Investigate relevant areas:

# Find related files
find . -name "*.ts" | xargs grep -l "{relevant_term}"

# Understand existing patterns
cat src/{relevant_directory}/

# Check for existing tests
ls -la src/**/__tests__/

Document what you find:

  • Existing implementations to follow
  • Patterns used in the codebase
  • Potential conflicts or integration points
  • Technical constraints

Step 3: Consider Approaches

For each viable approach, evaluate:

Criteria Approach A Approach B Approach C
Complexity
Risk
Maintainability
Performance
Time to implement

Step 4: Make Decisions

For each key decision point:

  1. State the question
  2. List the options
  3. Explain the trade-offs
  4. Make a recommendation (or ask for user input)

Read the full file on GitHub · 266 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. 2d ago First seen · 266 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 429035cefaa5

Subscribe to this mod's changes

brainstorming is a skill published in the GitHub repository JPM1118/Threadwork (5 stars, last pushed 8mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,399 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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