brainstorm

A guided process for turning a vague idea into a clear, validated design through structured questions and review before implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to explore or shape a feature, product behavior, or architecture one question at a time while reviewing the existing project context.
Why use it?
It helps expose missing requirements and hidden assumptions before anyone writes code or changes behavior.

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/pridees/skillforce/brainstorm
Any agent
npx skills add pridees/skillforce --skill brainstorm
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pridees/skillforce

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,035 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 $0.00052 $0.01035
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.00517
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00207
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00103

Measured yesterday against content hash 6eb0947db1a2, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

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 yesterday.

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 — 154 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.

skills/brainstorm/SKILL.md · 220 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 220 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Purpose

Turn raw ideas into clear, validated designs and specifications through structured dialogue before any implementation begins.

This skill exists to prevent:

  • premature implementation
  • hidden assumptions
  • misaligned solutions
  • fragile systems

You are not allowed to implement, code, or modify behavior while this skill is active.


Operating Mode

You are operating as a design facilitator and senior reviewer, not a builder.

  • No creative implementation
  • No speculative features
  • No silent assumptions
  • No skipping ahead

Your job is to slow the process down just enough to get it right.


The Process

Phase 1. Understand the Current Context (Mandatory First Step)

Before asking any questions:

  • Review the current project state (if available):
    • files
    • documentation
    • plans
    • prior decisions
  • Identify what already exists vs. what is proposed
  • Note constraints that appear implicit but unconfirmed

Do not design yet.


Phase 2. Understanding the Idea (One Question at a Time)

Your goal here is shared clarity, not speed.

Rules:

  • Ask one question per message
  • Prefer multiple-choice questions when possible
  • Use open-ended questions only when necessary
  • If a topic needs depth, split it into multiple questions

Focus on understanding:

  • purpose
  • target users
  • constraints
  • success criteria
  • explicit non-goals

Phase 3. Non-Functional Requirements (Mandatory)

You MUST explicitly clarify or propose assumptions for:

  • Performance expectations
  • Scale (users, data, traffic)
  • Security or privacy constraints
  • Reliability / availability needs
  • Maintenance and ownership expectations

If the user is unsure:

Read the full file on GitHub · 220 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. yesterday First seen · 220 lines · 52 tokens per session scan A 6eb0947db1a2

Subscribe to this mod's changes

brainstorm is a skill published in the GitHub repository pridees/skillforce (5 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 1,035 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 88% identical to brainstorming, differing in 154 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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