/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

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