he-brainstorm

Harness Engineering Brainstorm

Philosophy

Make ambiguity useful without ceremony. Preserve stated facts, inferred bets, guesses, and out-of-scope work so the next HE stage can continue without re-litigating context. Local AGENTS.md, rules, hooks, command boundaries, and approval gates outrank this skill.

When to Use

Use when intent, terminology, expected behavior, tradeoffs, scope, idea quality, or next HE stage is unsettled before spec, plan, Linear, review, or implementation. Use folded he-ideate mode when the user asks what to improve, asks for options, wants ornate ideas filtered, wants dropped leverage recovered, or wants strong ideas before selecting one to brainstorm. Use domain_interview mode when the user asks to be interviewed through a design tree, resolve ubiquitous language, challenge project terms, or update UBIQUITOUS.md before downstream specification or planning.

When Not to Use

Do not use for selected execution slices, direct implementation, concrete bug fixes, approved specs, or approved plans. Route to the matching HE stage or implementation skill.

Inputs

User goal, identifiable subject, repo/Linear/session/.harness evidence, constraints, rejected ideas, and success criteria.

Outputs

Return schema_version when structured; stated facts; inferred bets; guesses; out-of-scope work; options/survivors; risks; warrants; scope_tier; blackboard_delta; validation or blocker status; artifact path when written; and next HE stage. Brainstorm artifacts live under .harness/brainstorm/**.md; folded he-ideate artifacts live under .harness/ideate/**.md.

Preconditions

Identify a subject before candidate generation. Inspect cited repo, Linear, session, or .harness evidence before treating it as fact. Classify side effects before acting: read-only, .harness artifact write, external write, repo write, or destructive.

Procedure

1. Explore first and require an identifiable subject before dispatching ideation or writing artifacts.
2. If cited evidence cannot be read, still return the brainstorming frame with validation: blocked, blocked_reason, explicitly labeled assumptions, and the smallest safe recovery step; do not replace the output with a generic request for pasted content.
3. Resolve only the stage context fields needed for tracker, artifact route, evidence freshness, and coding-harness handoff.
4. Separate stated facts, interpretations, guesses, and out-of-scope work.
5. Keep scope tight: start with 2-3 focused surfaces and widen only when the ambiguity cannot be resolved from the initial evidence.
6. Route durable brainstorm artifacts to .harness/brainstorm/**.md; route explicit folded he-ideate artifacts to .harness/ideate/**.md.
7. Resolve or block the Linear tracker before durable handoff for tracked work.
8. In folded he-ideate mode, use references/ideation-mode.md for candidate generation, critique, coverage recovery, survivor selection, web research, and specialist-skill steering.
9. Apply the first-principles contract before survivor selection: prefer ideas that prevent verified HE failures or reduce ambiguity; defer copied patterns that lack HE-specific failure evidence.
10. Apply the BLUF review contract to non-trivial durable brainstorm or ideation artifacts so the selected survivor, uncertainty, risk consequence, and next HE stage are visible before option detail.
11. Ask before survivor selection when the chosen survivor would shape downstream spec, plan, Linear work, or implementation scope.
12. In domain_interview mode, apply the ubiquitous-language contract: inspect repo language and code evidence before asking, use request_user_input for one bounded branch question at a time when available, update UBIQUITOUS.md or the selected context-specific ubiquitous file inline when a glossary term is resolved, and never store implementation decisions in the ubiquitous language file.