ce-brainstorm

Brainstorm a Feature or Improvement

Note: The current year is 2026. Use this when dating requirements-only unified plans.

Brainstorming helps answer WHAT to build through collaborative dialogue. It precedes ce-plan, which enriches the same unified plan artifact with HOW to build it.

The durable output of this workflow is a requirements-only unified plan. In other workflows this might be called a lightweight PRD or feature brief. In compound engineering, keep the workflow name brainstorm, but write the first version of the plan artifact under <root>/plans/ with artifact_readiness: requirements-only so 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.

Setup

Run this once at the start of this invocation, before any subagent dispatch, and follow the directives it prints — except where one conflicts with this skill's own rules on asking the user questions, whether those rules are scoped to a non-interactive mode or apply in every mode, in which case this skill's rules win and no blocking question is asked. Run the fence exactly as written, as its own command: do not pipe or filter it (no head, tail, or grep), do not truncate its output, and do not bundle it into a batch with other commands. Its output opens with a === skill context header and ends with CE_CONTEXT_END; if you received one of those lines without the other, the output was truncated — rerun the fence verbatim once. That recovery is the only rerun: otherwise do not rerun it within the same invocation; a later invocation of this or any other skill runs its own. If no Node runtime is available the skill proceeds unchanged.

SKILL_DIR="<absolute path of the directory containing the SKILL.md you just read>";
NODE="$(for c in node nodejs; do command -v "$c" >/dev/null 2>&1 && "$c" -e '' >/dev/null 2>&1 && { echo "$c"; break; }; done)";
if [ -n "$NODE" ]; then
"$NODE" "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/context.mjs" || echo "context script failed; continue with the skill's normal behavior";
else
echo "no Node runtime; continue with the skill's normal behavior";
fi

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 Product Contract 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-only unified plan or brief alignment. Larger work gets a fuller Product Contract. 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.
7. Do not turn coverage into decomposition - For software brainstorms, treat named devices, providers, and data sources as coverage requirements, not automatically as separate integration workstreams. Split them only when a shared access path cannot satisfy a named requirement. Leave connector selection to planning unless that choice materially changes product scope or behavior.
8. Keep one coherent work unit per artifact - When a request contains independently valuable outcomes that can be planned and delivered separately, choose one as the current focus before deep exploration. Preserve how the surrounding work is currently understood without turning tentative future areas into requirements for this plan.

Interaction Rules

These rules apply to every brainstorm, including the universal (non-software) flow routed to references/universal-brainstorming.md.

1. Ask one question at a time - One question per turn, even when sub-questions feel related. Stacking several questions in a single message produces diluted answers; pick the single most useful one and ask it.
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. Default to the platform's blocking question tool - Use AskUserQuestion in Claude Code (call ToolSearch with select:AskUserQuestion first if its schema isn't loaded), request_user_input in Codex, ask_question in Antigravity CLI (agy), ask_user in Pi (requires the pi-ask-user extension). These tools include a free-text fallback, so well-chosen options scaffold the answer without confining it. This default holds for opening and elicitation questions too, not only narrowing. Fall back to numbered options in chat only when no blocking tool exists in the harness (including ToolSearch returning no match for it) or the call errors (e.g., Codex edit modes) — not because a schema load is required. Never silently skip the question. Exception — visual-probe gate: on an inherently-visual topic (Phase 0.3 tripwire), the first shape/behavior/state/layout/flow/diagram decision is governed by references/visual-probes.md, which takes precedence over this rule. See the Phase 1.3 gate.
5. Use an open-ended question only when the question is genuinely open - Drop the blocking tool when the answer is inherently narrative, when presented options would steer a diagnostic or introspective answer, or when you cannot write 3-4 genuinely distinct, plausibly-correct options without padding. The test: if you'd be straining to fill the option slots, the question is open — ask it open-ended. Rule 1 still applies: one question per turn.
6. Open-ended questions earn their place only when they're specific enough to elicit a substantive answer - Apply Rule 5 silently: just ask the question, never narrate the form choice. The question must give the user something concrete to anchor on. Good: "What's the most concrete thing someone's already done about this — paid for it, built a workaround, quit a tool over it?" — it names what counts as an answer. Too thin: "What's your take?" — nothing to bite into, and framings that imply a short answer ("briefly", yes/no) waste the open question the same way.

Artifact Root

This skill writes requirements-only plans under <root>/plans/. Resolve <root> when you first compose a <root>/ path (per the block below), never before you need it. A write to <root>/... and a read of <root>/solutions/ both count as composing a <root>/ path, so either one triggers resolution; only a run that touches no <root>/ path at all -- a scratch-only or no-repo flow -- skips it.

Resolve the CE artifact root <root> before composing any artifact path.

• Read docs_root from <repo-root>/.compound-engineering/config.local.yaml, then config.yaml; first non-empty value wins (<repo-root> = git rev-parse --show-toplevel). Unset -> <root> is docs, exactly as before.
• Validate a set value: a repo-relative directory whose real, symlink-resolved path stays inside the repo and is neither the repo root nor under .git/. Otherwise stop with an error naming docs_root and the value -- never fall back to docs.
• Use <root> as the sole artifact location: create it if absent, compose each path as <root>/<subdir> with this skill's own subdirectory, and never also read docs.

Output Guidance

• Prioritize decision-relevant detail - Preserve the facts, tradeoffs, and caveats needed for the next decision; trim introductions, repetition, and optional background first.

Model Tiers

Sub-agent dispatch is tiered by task shape, never hardcoded to a model name. When dispatching the Phase 1.1 grounding scout, the Phase 2.6 claim verifier, or the opt-in Slack researcher, read references/model-tiers.md for the tier definitions (extraction / generation / ceiling) and the degradation rule for platforms without per-agent model selection or with no subagent primitive at all.

Feature Description

The feature description is the input this skill was invoked with — what to explore, present in the current prompt or conversation, whether the user provided it directly or a calling skill passed it.

If no feature description was provided, ask the user: "What would you like to explore? Please describe the feature, problem, or improvement you're thinking about."

Do not proceed until you have a feature description from the user.

Session-settled decisions. The invoking conversation, or a distilled brief passed as invocation input — from the user or a calling skill — may carry decisions already examined-and-chosen. Read references/settled-decisions.md before classifying conversation-carried decisions — it carries the settlement test, the two provenance classes, the annotation shape, and capture rules. Skipping the classification fails in both directions: re-asking a decision the user already made, or promoting an unexamined assertion to settled.

Execution Flow

Phase 0: Resume, Assess, and Route

0.0 Resolve Output Mode

Determine OUTPUT_FORMAT before any other phase fires. Output mode is exclusive — the requirements-only unified plan is written as either markdown (.md) OR HTML (.html), never both. Precedence: in-prompt request > user-stated preference > config > default (md), with a hard pipeline-mode override.

Read config. Resolve <repo-root> at runtime by running git rev-parse --show-toplevel with the shell tool. Then read <repo-root>/.compound-engineering/config.local.yaml with the native file-read tool. If the root cannot be resolved (not a git repo) or the file does not exist, fall through to the defaults below.

Resolution steps:

1. In-prompt request. Reason over the user's prompt for this run for a request about this document's output format, expressed either as the output: shorthand or in plain language ("make this a webpage", "I want this in HTML"). On an explicit format, match it case-insensitively to md/html, and ignore the output: shorthand token when reading the rest of the prompt as the feature description. Distinguish a request about the document's format from a format named as subject matter: "explore an HTML export feature" is the work, not a doc-format request — do not switch on it.
   • output: alone (no value) → no-op, fall through to step 2.
   • output:<unknown> (e.g., output:pdf) → drop the token, fall through to step 2, and remember to emit a one-line note above the post-generation menu after final resolution: Ignored unknown output: value '<value>' — using <resolved_format> instead. where <resolved_format> is the value OUTPUT_FORMAT actually resolved to after the remaining precedence steps. Do not hardcode md in the note — that misleads users when config has set HTML.
2. User-stated preference. If this prompt holds no format request, honor an output-format preference (markdown vs HTML) the user established earlier — earlier in this session, in your memory, or written into their active instructions — that is already in your context (match md/html case-insensitively). A remembered preference is more current than the rarely-edited config, so it overrides the config in step 3. Do not open or search instruction files to find it — act only on a preference already present in your context; if none is, fall through to the config.
3. Config. If steps 1-2 did not resolve and the config file read above has an active (non-commented) brainstorm_output: key whose value matches md or html (case-insensitive), use it. Missing, invalid, or commented values fall through silently. Critical: lines starting with # are YAML comments and must be ignored — the shipped config template includes commented examples like # brainstorm_output: html to document the option, and matching those as active settings would silently force HTML mode on every run without the user having opted in.
4. Default. Otherwise OUTPUT_FORMAT=md.
5. Pipeline override. When invoked from LFG or any disable-model-invocation context, force OUTPUT_FORMAT=md regardless of steps 1-4. Downstream consumers (ce-plan, ce-work) parse markdown reliably; HTML in pipeline runs is unnecessary friction.

Token-parsing convention: only literal-prefix flag tokens (output:, mode:, brainstorm_model:<alias>, delegate: where applicable) are consumed and stripped. Other <word>:<word> tokens — including conventional commit prefixes like feat:, fix:, chore: that may appear inside a feature description — pass through verbatim. A stripped brainstorm_model:<alias> carrier (passed by an orchestrator) is retained for the approach-generation model-elevation step, not woven into the feature description.

Resolve the format here; load the rendering reference at Phase 3, not now. The format-rendering reference (references/markdown-rendering.md for md, references/html-rendering.md for html) is consumed only when the doc is composed — loading it during Phase 0 would carry 200+ lines through the entire dialogue. Phase 3 names the load. Section content is the same in either format; presentation differs.

The output: preference does NOT auto-propagate to ce-plan on handoff — ce-plan re-resolves its own plan_output config independently. Because both skills now operate on the same unified artifact, an explicit conversion by ce-plan must report the old path and new canonical path; pipeline mode may force markdown by writing the canonical markdown plan path and leaving any HTML sibling untouched as non-canonical for automated discovery.

0.1 Resume Existing Work When Appropriate

This resume scan needs <root>/plans/, so it applies only to a repo-backed run. If there is no git repository, or resolving <root> fails (a bad docs_root), skip the scan and continue — do not fail the run here, since Phase 0.1b may route non-software work to references/universal-brainstorming.md, whose contract does not write a unified plan under <root>/plans/.

Only when that gate passes — a repo-backed run whose <root> resolved — evaluate this resume condition; never resolve <root> here on a run the gate told you to skip. When it applies, if the user references an existing brainstorm topic or document, or there is an obvious recent matching unified plan in <root>/plans/ with artifact_contract: ce-unified-plan/v1, artifact_readiness: requirements-only, and product_contract_source: ce-brainstorm:

• Read the document
• Confirm with the user before resuming: "Found an existing requirements-only plan for [topic]. Should I continue from this, or start fresh?"
• If resuming, summarize the current state briefly, continue from its existing decisions and outstanding questions, and update the existing document instead of creating a duplicate
• Resume preserves the existing artifact's format, except pipeline mode. Write back in whatever format the existing artifact uses — markdown if the existing file is .md, HTML if it is .html. Explicit output: arguments on this run override (e.g., resuming an .html doc with output:md switches the artifact to markdown). Pipeline mode (LFG, any disable-model-invocation context) always wins per Phase 0.0: even when resuming an existing .html brainstorm, pipeline runs force OUTPUT_FORMAT=md so downstream automation receives the markdown shape it expects. The resume rewrites the markdown file at the parallel path and the original .html is left in place untouched.

Historical docs/brainstorms/*-requirements.{md,html} files remain legacy inputs for ce-plan, but new ce-brainstorm outputs do not write there.

0.1b Classify Task Domain

Before proceeding to Phase 0.2, classify whether this is a software task. The key question is: does the task involve building, modifying, or architecting software? -- not whether the task mentions software topics.

Software (continue to Phase 0.2) -- the task references code, repositories, APIs, databases, or asks to build/modify/debug/deploy software.

Non-software brainstorming (route to universal brainstorming) -- BOTH conditions must be true:

• None of the software signals above are present
• The task describes something the user wants to explore, decide, or think through in a non-software domain

Neither (respond directly, skip all brainstorming phases) -- the input is a quick-help request, error message, factual question, or single-step task that doesn't need a brainstorm.

Verdict-shape carve-out — do not exit before the 0.1c gate. A request weighing whether to adopt / switch to / replace a named external technology, library, pattern, platform, or architecture for this project is a software decision even when it only names the tool and asks the bare question ("should we adopt Biome here?"). Classify it as Software and continue so the 0.1c gate below can catch it — do not route it to Neither or Non-software, which would skip the gate and lose the exact verdict-shape prompts that gate is for.

If non-software brainstorming is detected: Read references/universal-brainstorming.md now and follow it — it replaces Phases 0.2–4 entirely. Scope assessment, exploration moves, convergence, and the wrap-up menu for this route live there, not in this main body; improvising them produces an unstructured chat with no synthesis and no handoff. The non-software route does not write artifact_contract: ce-unified-plan/v1 or artifact_readiness: requirements-only; those fields are reserved for software Product Contracts that can later become implementation-ready code plans. The Core Principles and Interaction Rules above still apply unchanged — including one-question-per-turn and the default to the platform's blocking question tool — and are the only part of this file that survives the route.

0.1c Route a Verdict Question to ce-pov

A brainstorm scopes what to build once a direction is chosen. Deciding whether to adopt, switch to, or replace a specific named external candidate (technology, library, pattern, platform, or architecture) judged against this project is a different job — a decisive, project-grounded verdict, which is ce-pov's purpose.

The verdict shape — all three hold: a named external candidate (one outside thing, or a bounded set the user already named like "X vs Y vs Z" — not an open field for you to enumerate); a whether-to-commit intent (adopt / switch to / migrate / replace / is-it-time-for / revisit — not "how should we design or scope Y"); judged against this project (fit, migration cost, worth it here), not a neutral explainer. Open-ended design or scoping where you'd invent the options stays here. The whether-to-commit trigger separates the two: "help me pick between X, Y, Z" is a verdict; "I'm mulling X, Y, Z" stays here.

When the shape matches — at intake, or whenever later dialogue (Phases 1.3–2) clarifies a request into it — read references/verdict-routing.md and follow it: offer the ce-pov handoff interactively (never silently switch), invoke ce-pov on accept, drop the offer and continue the normal workflow unchanged on decline. The reference owns the offer construction, field mapping, and what to pass to ce-pov.

0.2 Assess Whether Brainstorming Is Needed

Clear requirements indicators:

• Specific acceptance criteria provided
• Referenced existing patterns to follow
• Described exact expected behavior
• Constrained, well-defined scope

If requirements are already clear: Keep the interaction brief. Confirm understanding and present concise next-step options rather than forcing a long brainstorm. Only write a short requirements-only unified plan when a durable handoff to planning or later review would be valuable. Skip Phase 1.1 and 1.2 entirely — still classify tier in Phase 0.3, then go straight to Phase 1.3 or Phase 2.5 and follow references/synthesis-summary.md's Path A / Path B gate exactly. Do not assume the synthesis is announce-only: a richly pre-loaded prompt classifies as Standard or Deep, which routes to Path B (full scoping synthesis + confirmation), not Path A — collapsing that gate is the defect synthesis-summary.md warns against.

0.3 Assess Scope

Use the feature description plus a light repo scan to classify the work:

• Lightweight - small, well-bounded, low ambiguity
• Standard - normal feature or bounded refactor with some decisions to make
• Deep - cross-cutting, strategic, or highly ambiguous

If the scope is unclear, ask one targeted question to disambiguate and then proceed.

Coherent-work gate. Before entering Phase 1, check whether the request contains more than one independently plannable product outcome: each has its own user value or acceptance boundary and could be delivered without completing the others. Shared actors, one end-to-end outcome, or coverage across named devices/providers do not by themselves justify a split.

When the gate finds multiple coherent areas:

1. Propose a plain-language breakdown and state only relationships supported now: which areas depend on or enable others, share a product rule, or can proceed independently.
2. Ask which one area this brainstorm should own. If the user already chose one, carry it forward instead of asking again.
3. Treat that area as the sole source of Requirements, Flows, Acceptance Examples, and later Implementation Units. Other areas remain contextual candidates, not scope.
4. Preserve the current broader understanding for Phase 3's How This Work Fits Together section. Mark tentative relationships as tentative; later brainstorms may revise, split, merge, or discard them.
5. Carry the boundary into the Goal Capsule: name the current area in its objective and state that the surrounding areas are not active scope.

Keep the work together when the outcomes cannot be independently useful or validated, or when separating them would force this Product Contract to invent the missing shared behavior. This gate narrows the active artifact; it does not create a parent plan or a roadmap.

Deep sub-mode: feature vs product. For Deep scope, also classify whether the brainstorm must establish product shape or inherit it:

• Deep — feature (default): existing product shape anchors decisions. Primary actors, core outcome, positioning, and primary flows are already established in the product or repo. The brainstorm extends or refines within that shape.
• Deep — product: the brainstorm must establish product shape rather than inherit it. Primary actors, core outcome, positioning against adjacent products, or primary end-to-end flows are materially unresolved. Existing code lowers the odds of product-tier but does not by itself rule it out — a half-built tool with ambiguous shape is still product-tier.

Product-tier triggers additional Phase 1.2 questions and additional Product Contract sections. Feature-tier uses the current Deep behavior unchanged.

Visual probe tripwire. If the feature is inherently visual or spatial — drawing/canvas tools, annotation behavior, visual editors, UI layout or navigation, interaction states, charts, diagrams, animation, maps, timelines, or spatial flows — read references/visual-probes.md now. Strong signals include freehand vs constrained drawing behavior, canvas annotation tools, layout comparisons, and state/flow placement. Loading the reference here is readiness only; it owns when the gate fires (state-based, at the first shape/behavior/state/layout/flow/diagram decision), the text-vs-visual offer, and helper invocation.

Unfamiliarity tripwire. If the user signals they lack working knowledge of the domain or the territory the topic touches — "I know nothing about X", "never touched the auth modules", "I don't know what's possible / what I should be asking" — read references/blindspot-pass.md now. Loading here is readiness only; the reference owns when the offer fires (territory-scoped, before the first substantive question into the flagged territory), the map's shape, and how mapped decisions re-enter the dialogue.

0.4 Surface the Workflow Spine

For Standard and Deep scope, use the platform's task-tracking capability when available (TaskCreate/TaskUpdate/TaskList in Claude Code, update_plan in Codex, or the equivalent on other harnesses). Skip it entirely for Lightweight and on the Phase 0.1b non-software route. Create it here, not earlier — 0.1b and 0.1c exit before this point, and the tier is unknown until 0.3.

If the harness exposes no task-tracking capability — including ToolSearch or its equivalent returning no match — continue normally without simulating a task list in chat.

The spine is five tasks, in order:

1. Check what already exists
2. Ask scoping questions
3. Weigh approaches and recommend
4. Confirm scope before writing
5. Write the requirements plan

Conditional work earns a task only when its gate fires — never at creation, and never as a placeholder for a branch that may not run. A branch earns one when the user is either waiting on it or would be surprised to learn it happened: an accepted blindspot pass, a dispatched Slack researcher, a Phase 2.6 verifier working in the background. A step that fires per-decision rather than once does not — it would thrash the list. Insert it at the position where it runs.

Name every task you add the way the spine is named: verb first, five words or fewer, naming the outcome the user can hold you to — not the phase, the internal activity, or the tool. Verify claims against the code, not Phase 2.6 claim verification. Never restate counts, quotas, or pacing in a name; that contract lives in the phase that owns it.

When a gate resolves such that a listed task will not run, record the skip — never mark it plainly complete, and never let it vanish unexplained. In order of preference: set a cancelled or skipped status if the harness has one; otherwise rename the task to name the skip (Skipped: no doc warranted) and then mark it complete; only if the name cannot be changed, delete it. Say why in the conversation either way — the list carries the fact, not the reason. If Phase 3 decides no doc is warranted, that is task 5. If the 0.1c handoff is accepted mid-dialogue, clear the list entirely — ce-pov owns the run from there. A task you find yourself skipping routinely is misnamed: it encodes a branch rather than an outcome, so rename it to what happens in the common case.

The list is a view for the user, not an instruction to you. It does not change when a phase fires or what that phase requires, and it never substitutes for a phase's own exit condition.

Phase 1: Understand the Idea

1.1 Existing Context Scan

Scan the repo before substantive brainstorming. Match depth to scope:

Lightweight — Search for the topic, check if something similar already exists, and move on.

Standard and Deep — Two passes:

Constraint Check (inline) — Use the project's active instructions and conventions already in your context. Read STRATEGY.md if it exists for product direction and CONCEPTS.md if it exists for canonical vocabulary. Use canonical names in dialogue, approaches, and the Product Contract; if a source adds nothing, move on.

Topic Scan (grounding scout) — Create and retain the absolute scratch directory with this shell block, substituting the absolute path of this skill's directory and a short unique run slug:

SCRATCH_ROOT="/tmp/compound-engineering-$(id -u)";
if [ -L "$SCRATCH_ROOT" ]; then echo "unsafe scratch root symlink: $SCRATCH_ROOT" >&2; exit 1; fi;
(umask 077; mkdir -p "$SCRATCH_ROOT") || exit 1;
if [ -L "$SCRATCH_ROOT" ] || [ ! -O "$SCRATCH_ROOT" ]; then echo "scratch root is not owned by the current user: $SCRATCH_ROOT" >&2; exit 1; fi;
chmod 700 "$SCRATCH_ROOT" || exit 1;
SCRATCH_DIR="$SCRATCH_ROOT/ce-brainstorm/<run-id>";
(umask 077; mkdir -p "$SCRATCH_DIR") || exit 1; chmod 700 "$SCRATCH_DIR" || exit 1;
echo "$SCRATCH_DIR";

Then dispatch one extraction-tier sub-agent via the platform's subagent primitive where available (a Task/Agent-style dispatch on harnesses that expose one); otherwise run the work inline or serially. In harnesses that support background dispatch, proceed to Phase 1.2/1.3 without waiting: the scout runs during the user's think-time on the opening questions. Scout prompt:

Gather grounding for a requirements brainstorm about {topic} in this repo. Search first with the native file-search and content-search tools, then read targeted sections — budget ~20 reads, preferring ranges over whole files. Find: whether something similar already exists, the most relevant existing artifacts (brainstorms, plans, specs, feature docs), adjacent examples of similar behavior, and the current state of anything the topic would touch (tables, routes, config, dependencies). Write a grounding dossier to {scratch-dir}/grounding.md: at most 150 lines of verbatim quotes and short code snippets, each with a file:line pointer. Extraction only — quote what the repo says; do not interpret or propose. If the topic has little footprint, write less rather than padding. Return only a gist: 3-5 lines summarizing what the dossier holds, plus its absolute path.

Carry only the gist in the dialogue. When the conversation needs specifics the gist can't answer — the user challenges a claim, an approach needs grounding — read the dossier on demand: it is a condensed, verified quote-sheet, always cheaper than re-scanning raw files. Downstream consumers (the Phase 2.6 verifier, the ce-plan handoff) receive the dossier path, not its contents. If the scout has not returned by the time Phase 2 needs it, wait for it then.

If the scan and scout surface nothing relevant, say so and continue. Two rules govern technical depth during the scan:

1. Verify before claiming — When the brainstorm touches checkable infrastructure (database tables, routes, config files, dependencies, model definitions), read the relevant source files to confirm what actually exists. Any claim that something is absent — a missing table, an endpoint that doesn't exist, a dependency not in the Gemfile, a config option with no current support — must be verified against the codebase first; if not verified, label it as an unverified assumption. This applies to every brainstorm regardless of topic.

2. Defer design decisions to planning — Implementation details like schemas, migration strategies, endpoint structure, or deployment topology belong in planning, not here — unless the brainstorm is itself about a technical or architectural decision, in which case those details are the subject of the brainstorm and should be explored.

Slack context (opt-in, Standard and Deep only) — never auto-dispatch. Route by condition:

• Tools available + user asked: Read references/agents/slack-researcher.md and dispatch a generic subagent seeded with that local prompt plus a brief summary of the brainstorm topic alongside Phase 1.1 work. Do not dispatch a standalone agent by type/name. Incorporate findings into constraint and context awareness.
• Tools available + user didn't ask: Note in output: "Slack tools detected. Ask me to search Slack for organizational context at any point, or include it in your next prompt."
• No tools + user asked: Note in output: "Slack context was requested but no Slack tools are available. Install and authenticate the Slack plugin to enable organizational context search."

1.2 Product Pressure Test

Before generating approaches, scan the user's opening for rigor gaps. This is agent-internal analysis, not a user-facing checklist: read the opening, note which gaps actually exist, and raise only those during Phase 1.3 — folded into the normal flow of dialogue, not fired as a pre-flight gauntlet. A fuzzy opening may earn three or four probes; a concrete, well-framed one may earn zero because no scope-appropriate gaps were found.

Read references/product-pressure-test.md for the per-tier lens catalog (Lightweight / Standard / Deep / Deep-product) and the synthesis questions the agent weighs in its own reasoning. Match depth to the Phase 0.3 scope. Phase 1.3 owns how each found gap fires as a probe.

A session-settled decision counts as already-probed — it is not a gap. Spend the pressure test's scrutiny on unexamined assertions instead: each gets its one examination here rather than being re-litigated downstream.

1.3 Collaborative Dialogue

Follow the Interaction Rules above. Use the platform's blocking question tool when available.

Blindspot gate — check it before probing flagged territory. If the Phase 0.3 unfamiliarity tripwire fired, fire the blindspot offer from references/blindspot-pass.md before the first substantive question into the flagged territory (questions about the user's own problem, users, and evidence proceed normally — the gate is territory-scoped). The gate also arms mid-dialogue without a tripwire: when two consecutive answers show the user cannot evaluate the question's substance — not merely hasn't decided — read the reference and offer the pass then. Never silently switch into teaching; the offer is a blocking question.

Visual-probe gate — precondition, check it before raising the first shape decision. If the Phase 0.3 tripwire fired, then before raising the first decision about shape, behavior, state, layout, flow, or a diagram — in any form, plain chat or a blocking tool — fire the text-vs-visual offer from references/visual-probes.md. The gate is state-based: offer unless this specific decision has already been through it; anchor the check to the decision you are about to raise, not a "pending gate" remembered since Phase 0.3. It takes precedence over the default blocking-question path (Interaction Rule 4): do not raise the shape decision as an AskUserQuestion/request_user_input menu until the user has declined visual. An ASCII preview or text mockup inside the question's choices does not satisfy the offer — that is the shortcut this gate exists to stop. Use the platform's blocking question tool for the text-vs-visual offer itself when available; the reference owns the offer wording, the cheapest-probe build, helper invocation, and the display-only feedback contract.

Guidelines:

• Ask what the user is already thinking before offering your own ideas. This surfaces hidden context and prevents fixation on AI-generated framings.
• Start broad (problem, users, value) then narrow (constraints, exclusions, edge cases)
• Rigor probes fire before Phase 2 and are open-ended, not menus. Each scope-appropriate gap found in Phase 1.2 fires as a separate direct open-ended probe — one probe satisfies one gap, not multiple. Surface them progressively across the conversation — interleaving with narrowing moves is fine — as long as every gap found in Phase 1.2 has been probed before Phase 2. A menu would signal which kinds of evidence count and let the user pick rather than produce; an open probe forces real observation or surfaces real uncertainty. Each of Phase 1.2's "when present, ask..." lines is the probe; phrase it per Interaction Rule 6. Attachment is the final rigor probe before Phase 2 when that gap is present — presence is judged from the opening per Phase 1.2, and narrowing having already produced a shape is not a reason to skip it; its job is to pressure-test the user's implicit framing before Phase 2 inherits it. If a probe's answer reveals genuine uncertainty, record it as an explicit assumption in the Product Contract rather than skipping the probe.
• Clarify the problem frame, validate assumptions, and ask about success criteria
• Make requirements concrete enough that planning will not need to invent behavior
• Surface dependencies or prerequisites only when they materially affect scope
• Resolve product decisions here; leave technical implementation choices for planning
• Bring ideas, alternatives, and challenges instead of only interviewing

Before exiting Phase 1.3: integration check. Mentally combine what the user has said so far and surface any non-obvious consequences the dialogue hasn't probed. If user-stated X plus user-stated Y plus your-default-Z produces a downstream effect the user is unlikely to have tracked through one-question-at-a-time dialogue ("if mute lives on the rule AND we don't warn on delete, then rule-delete silently loses pause state"), probe it now while you're still in dialogue. One probe per genuine combination effect, asked open-ended, same discipline as rigor probes. Phase 2.5's call-outs are a safety net for residuals (silent agent inferences, pre-loaded contexts with no dialogue) — NOT a punt list for consequences you could have asked about now.

Exit condition: Exit Phase 1.3 when each of these holds, OR the user explicitly wants to proceed: the primary actor/user is identified or marked unknown; the desired outcome is stated; the in-scope and out-of-scope boundaries that matter are known; success criteria or acceptance signals are known or recorded as assumptions; every Phase 1.2 gap found has been probed or recorded as an assumption; and no integration-check question is pending. A session-settled decision counts as already-probed toward every clause — never re-ask it.

Phase 2: Explore Approaches

Model elevation. Before generating approaches, load references/reasoning-elevation.md and follow it. It resolves whether the user chose a model for approach generation — from this run's prompt or the brainstorm_model config key — and if so dispatches that one step to the chosen model on any harness, with a read-only verifying handoff and transparent fallback to your session model. When no model is chosen it is a no-op; proceed normally. It runs the same on every harness — do not gate it on the host.

If multiple plausible directions remain, propose 2-3 concrete approaches based on research and conversation. Otherwise state the recommended direction directly.

Use at least one non-obvious angle — inversion (what if we did the opposite?), constraint removal (what if X weren't a limitation?), or analogy from how another domain solves this. The first approaches that come to mind are usually variations on the same axis. Hold each approach to an anti-genericness test: if it would appear in a generic listicle for this problem category, sharpen it against the grounding dossier or drop it.

Present approaches first, then evaluate. Let the user see all options before hearing which one is recommended — leading with a recommendation before the user has seen alternatives anchors the conversation prematurely.

If approach differences are spatial, behavioral, or otherwise visual enough that prose would be slower or lower-fidelity, use references/visual-probes.md before presenting the choice. If the Phase 0.3 tripwire fired and no shape decision has yet been through the gate, the offer fires here, per that reference. The visual path remains opt-in and display-only; text remains a first-class path.

When useful, include one deliberately higher-upside alternative:

• Identify what adjacent addition or reframing would most increase usefulness, compounding value, or durability without disproportionate carrying cost. Present it as a challenger option alongside the baseline, not as the default. Omit it when the work is already obviously over-scoped or the baseline request is clearly the right move.

At product tier, alternatives should differ on what is built (product shape, actor set, positioning), not how it is built. Implementation-variant alternatives belong at feature tier.

For each approach, provide:

• Brief description (2-3 sentences)
• Pros and cons
• Key risks or unknowns
• When it's best suited

Approach granularity: mechanism / product shape, not architecture. Approach descriptions name mechanism-level distinctions ("pause as a rule property" vs "pause as an event filter" vs "pause as a separate entity") and product-relevant trade-offs (plan-tier coupling, complexity surface, migration difficulty). They do NOT name implementation specifics — column names, table names, file paths, service classes, JSON shapes, exact method names. Those are ce-plan's job. Bringing architecture forward at brainstorm time forces the user to make architectural decisions on ce-brainstorm's intentionally-shallow research, and the synthesis at Phase 2.5 then has to filter out the leak.

After presenting all approaches, state your recommendation and explain why. Prefer simpler solutions when added complexity creates real carrying cost, but do not reject low-cost, high-value polish just because it is not strictly necessary.

If one approach is clearly best and alternatives are not meaningful, skip the menu and state the recommendation directly.

If relevant, call out whether the choice is:

• Reuse an existing pattern
• Extend an existing capability
• Build something net new

Phase 2.5: Synthesis Summary

STOP. Before composing the synthesis, read references/synthesis-summary.md. The two-stage shape (internal three-bucket draft → chat-time scoping synthesis), the four scoping synthesis sections with their keep tests, the per-bullet affirmability and detail tests, the tier-aware bullet budget with re-cut rule, anti-pattern guidance, soft-cut behavior, self-redirect support, and internal-draft routing into doc body sections all live there — none of them appear in this main body. Composing a synthesis without these rules loaded reliably produces malformed output: the full internal three-bucket draft pasted verbatim into chat, implementation detail leaking into the scoping synthesis, the proposal-pitch anti-pattern. The Path A / Path B routing below decides only whether a confirmation fires — it is not the synthesis spec.

Surface a scoping synthesis to the user before Phase 3 writes the requirements-only unified plan — the user's last opportunity to correct scope before the artifact lands. The scoping synthesis is shaped like what two product collaborators would confirm before writing a PRD, not like a comprehensive audit or a one-line preview.

Fires for all tiers including Lightweight. Skip Phase 2.5 entirely on the Phase 0.1b non-software (universal-brainstorming) route.

Path A vs Path B is decided by references/synthesis-summary.md from two signals: whether any blocking question fired, and the Phase 0.3 tier. Path A (announce-only, no confirmation) fires solely for Lightweight tier with no blocking questions; every other case — including a richly pre-loaded Standard/Deep opener that needed no dialogue — is Path B (full tier-aware scoping synthesis with an unconditional confirmation gate). Follow the reference's gate exactly; do not decide the path or compose the synthesis from memory.

Session-settled decisions render in the scoping synthesis as Carrying forward: lines, never as questions or call-outs — references/synthesis-summary.md owns the rendering. Path B rich-context openers carrying prior-session decisions are the common case.

2.6 Claim Verification (inside the Path B confirmation wait)

When the upcoming Product Contract will assert checkable claims about the repo — absence claims ("no retry logic exists"), references to specific files, config, or dependencies, anything planning would build on — dispatch one generation-tier verifier at the same moment the Path B confirmation question goes up, so it runs during the user's think-time. Pass it the claim list (one line each), the grounding dossier path if one exists, and this instruction: verify each claim directly against the codebase — budget ~15 targeted reads — and return a per-claim verdict: confirmed (with file:line), refuted (with the contradicting evidence), or unverifiable. Do not block the confirmation question on the verifier.

Consume the verdicts at Phase 3: correct refuted claims before writing, label unverifiable ones as explicit assumptions. A fresh-context verifier replaces self-graded verification — the author confirming its own claims is anchored; the verifier never saw the dialogue.

Skip when Path A fires, when the doc will make no checkable claims, or on the non-software route. If the verifier dispatch fails, fall back to verifying the claims inline before the Phase 3 write — Phase 1.1's verify-before-claiming rule still holds either way.

Phase 3: Capture the Requirements-Only Unified Plan

Write or update a requirements-only unified plan only when the conversation produced durable decisions worth preserving — see references/brainstorm-sections.md "Decide whether a doc is warranted at all" for the criteria and the bug-fix stress test. Skip document creation when the user only needs brief alignment and the decisions can flow downstream (ce-plan, commit message, /solutions/) without a brainstorm artifact in the middle.

When a doc is warranted, compose it using:

• references/brainstorm-sections.md — section contract (unified plan skeleton contract, Product Contract hard floor, include-when-material catalog, agency rules, ID conventions).
• The format-specific rendering reference for the OUTPUT_FORMAT resolved at Phase 0.0 — read references/markdown-rendering.md (md) or references/html-rendering.md (html) now, before composing. It defines how the format presents the sections and was deliberately deferred from Phase 0.0; composing without it produces format drift the section contract alone cannot prevent.

Session-settled decisions land in the Product Contract's Key Decisions section carrying their session-settled: annotation (shape in references/settled-decisions.md), so ce-plan enrichment inherits the label into plan KTDs.

Write tight. A section being material is not license to pad it. Hold every kept section to the prose-economy discipline in references/brainstorm-sections.md: lead with the decision or outcome, one idea per sentence, a requirement is intent plus at most one qualifier, defer forks to Outstanding Questions rather than specifying both arms, resolve superseded text in place rather than stacking strata.

Write to <root>/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-NNN-<type>-<topic>-plan.<md|html> — extension follows OUTPUT_FORMAT. Include artifact_contract: ce-unified-plan/v1, artifact_readiness: requirements-only, and product_contract_source: ce-brainstorm. Title is <Name> - Plan (matching the H1; no conventional-commit prefix). Keep the doc light and standalone-readable: a Goal Capsule (objective, product authority, open blockers) and the Product Contract. Do not emit a Goal Launch Block or Reader Index. See references/brainstorm-sections.md — which owns the artifact content rules, including repo-relative file paths inside the doc.

Ready for Planning Check. After writing the actual file, run the four checks in references/brainstorm-sections.md: Complete, Consistent, Focused, and Usable by planning. Fix failures in place when the correction preserves settled intent, then rerun the failed checks. If a correction would choose or change product behavior or scope, ask one targeted question, update the artifact after the answer, and rerun the checks. Do not declare the artifact written or enter Phase 4 while any check fails. When confirming in chat after the pass, report the artifact with its absolute path so the reference is clickable.

Vocabulary Capture — after the requirements-only unified plan (only if CONCEPTS.md already exists)

Skip this step entirely if CONCEPTS.md does not exist at repo root — creation is owned by ce-compound and ce-compound-refresh.

Run this after the approaches, the scope synthesis, and the requirements-only unified plan — that is where the canonical term often gets chosen or corrected, so capturing during early dialogue (before this point) would miss the final resolved name. If it exists, scan the full dialogue and the Product Contract for resolved domain terms — terms where the conversation actively pinned down a precise local meaning, not terms merely mentioned in passing. Resolved means the definition is settled, not still under discussion. Provisional terms that may still revise stay in the conversation only.

For each resolved term: if missing, add it; if present but new precision surfaced, refine it; if already consistent, no action.

Domain entities, named processes, and status concepts with project-specific meaning only. Not file paths, class names, function signatures, or implementation decisions — CONCEPTS.md is a glossary, not a spec or catch-all.

Follow the format set by existing entries. Apply edits silently. (If Phase 3 skipped the doc, still run this against the resolved dialogue.)

Phase 4: Handoff

Read references/handoff.md now — before presenting any options. The option set and its visibility conditions, the rendering-mode rule, the per-selection dispatch instructions (including what gets passed to ce-plan), and the closing summary formats all live there — none of them appear in this main body. An improvised menu silently breaks pipeline routing: options surface in states where they must be hidden, and downstream skills receive the wrong payload.