/product-brainstorm — Requirements Exploration
Guided dialogue to explore what to build before committing to specs. Helps clarify fuzzy ideas into concrete, actionable requirements.
When to Use
- User says "brainstorm", "explore this idea", "help me think through"
- Requirements are fuzzy or incomplete
- Multiple approaches seem viable and need evaluation
- Before writing a PRD or tech spec
Process
Step 1: Understand the Problem
If $ARGUMENTS provides a topic, use it as the starting point. Otherwise, ask probing questions to understand the core need:
- What problem are you solving? (not what feature — the underlying problem)
- Who is this for? (specific user type, not "everyone")
- What does success look like? (measurable outcome)
- What have you tried or considered already?
Use AskUserQuestion to gather answers. Don't overwhelm — start with the most important question and build from there.
Step 2: Surface Assumptions & Constraints
Identify hidden assumptions:
- What are you assuming about your users?
- What technical constraints exist? (platform, stack, timeline)
- What's explicitly out of scope?
- Are there dependencies on other features or teams?
Step 3: Explore Approaches
Propose 2-3 distinct approaches with clear tradeoffs:
For each approach:
- What it is (1-2 sentences)
- Pros (what you gain)
- Cons (what you give up or risk)
- Effort (rough sense: small/medium/large)
Use AskUserQuestion to let the user choose or combine approaches.
Step 4: Define Edges
For the chosen approach, explore edge cases:
- What happens when there's no data? (empty states)
- What happens when things fail? (error states)
- What are the boundary conditions? (limits, extremes)
- How does this interact with existing features?
Step 5: Capture Output
Write a brainstorm summary to docs/brainstorms/YYYY-MM-DD-<name>.md:
# Brainstorm: [Topic]
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
## Problem
[The core problem being solved]
## Target User
[Who this is for]
## Chosen Approach
[The selected approach and why]
## Key Requirements
- [Requirement 1]
- [Requirement 2]
- [Requirement 3]
## Edge Cases & Constraints
- [Edge case or constraint]
## Open Questions
- [Anything still unresolved]
## Next Steps
- [ ] Write PRD (`/product-prd`)
- [ ] Write tech spec (`/product-tech-spec`)Output
Save to: docs/brainstorms/YYYY-MM-DD-<name>.md
Next Steps
- Ready to formalize? →
/product-prd - Know the architecture? →
/product-tech-spec - Ready to plan tasks? →
/engineer-plan