Getting it into your agent
This one installs as part of its plugin. Adding the marketplace and installing the plugin brings it with everything else the plugin ships.
/plugin marketplace add ondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit/plugin install deep-thoughtWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit/brainstorm)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit/brainstorm"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit/brainstorm/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit/brainstorm"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit/brainstorm.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00051 | $0.03185 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00020 | $0.01274 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00010 | $0.00637 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00318 |
Grade A, and why
brainstorm 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 2mo 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 330 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Brainstorm
Collaborative discovery before planning. Answers WHAT to build and WHY — precedes /plan, which answers HOW.
Boundaries
This skill MAY: research (read-only), discuss, ask questions, write the brainstorm document. This skill MAY NOT: edit code, create files beyond the brainstorm document, run tests, deploy, implement anything.
NEVER write code during this skill. This is a discussion, not implementation.
Common Rationalizations
| Shortcut | Why It Fails | The Cost |
|---|---|---|
| "Skip reframing — the user already knows what they want" | Users describe solutions, not problems. Without reframing, you build the wrong thing. | Days of rework when the real need surfaces |
| "Skip research — I'll brainstorm from scratch" | Reinventing what exists. The codebase has patterns, past brainstorms have context. | Wasted effort + inconsistency with existing decisions |
| "Keep exploring — we haven't found the perfect approach" | Diminishing returns. After 2-3 solid options, more exploration adds noise, not signal. | Analysis paralysis — nothing ships |
| "Let me just write some code to test this idea" | Brainstorming is for decisions, not prototypes. Code anchors you to an approach too early. | Premature commitment to the first thing that compiles |
Phase 0: Assess Whether Brainstorming Is Needed
Entry: User has a topic or problem area.
Not everything needs a brainstorm.
If requirements are already clear and specific: Ask the user whether to skip directly to planning or brainstorm first.
-
Prefer the harness's structured question UI if available
-
Otherwise present a short plain-text choice list with these options:
- Go to /plan (Recommended) — Requirements are clear; skip brainstorming and start planning
- Brainstorm first — Explore the problem space before committing to an approach
-
If user selects Go to /plan → exit this skill, suggest
/plan -
If user selects Brainstorm first → continue to Phase 1
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.
- 2mo ago First seen · 330 lines · 51 tokens per session scan A 656457e87cd0
brainstorm is a skill published in the GitHub repository ondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit (19 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 51 tokens to every session and 3,185 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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 2026-08-30.
brainstorm compared with skills from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| brainstormondrej-svec/heart-of-gold-toolkit | Skill | 19 | 1mo ago | MIT | A | 51 | Claude Code |
| imagegenopenai/codex | Skill | 134k | today | Apache-2.0 | A | 113 | Codex |
| playwright-climicrosoft/playwright | Skill | 99k | today | Apache-2.0 | A | 19 | Claude Code |
| local-ai-agentsmicrosoft/ai-agents-for-beginners | Skill | 79k | today | MIT | A | 200 | Claude Code, Codex |
| systematic-debuggingobra/superpowers | Skill | 314k | 3d ago | MIT | A | 21 | Claude Code |
| next-cache-components-adoptionvercel/next.js | Skill | 143k | yesterday | MIT | A | 95 | Claude Code |
| next-partial-prefetching-adoptionvercel/next.js | Skill | 143k | yesterday | MIT | A | 103 | Claude Code |