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Cadence

/c-brainstorm

Source of truth: skills/c-brainstorm/SKILL.md. For the why behind this stage, read the Brainstorm deep dive.

Purpose

Section titled “Purpose”

Runs an interactive question-and-answer session that turns a fuzzy idea into either a useful conversation or a written design stub, one question at a time, never jumping ahead to write code.

When to use it

Section titled “When to use it”

Reach for /c-brainstorm at the very start, when you have an idea but no written artifact yet. Use thought-partner mode when you just want to think something through out loud and may not build it. Use design-brainstorm mode when you intend to converge on an approach and walk away with a 00-overview.md stub. Do not use it to flesh out child docs or write a plan: that is /c-design and /c-plan.

Invocation forms

Section titled “Invocation forms”
  • /c-brainstorm <idea text>: start fresh; the mode is detected from how you phrase the idea.
  • /c-brainstorm: no idea given; it first asks “What are we tackling?”
  • /c-brainstorm --explore <topic>: force thought-partner mode (no artifact required).
  • /c-brainstorm --design <topic>: force design-brainstorm mode (ends with a stub).

Inputs & preconditions

Section titled “Inputs & preconditions”

A .cadence/config.yaml in the repo (or a parent folder). On the first run in a fresh repo where none exists, the command detects this and offers to scaffold sensible defaults inline before the Q&A begins. A missing config is not a hard blocker, it is a prompt. No prior design or plan is required; this is the entry point.

What it produces

Section titled “What it produces”
  • Thought-partner mode: nothing by default; the conversation is the value. On exit it offers (once) to drop a future/{slug}.md note or promote the session into design-brainstorm mode.
  • Design-brainstorm mode: a single 00-overview.md stub at <paths.designs>/{yyyy-mm-dd-slug}/, holding what you’re building, why, the chosen approach, a proposed doc index, a decisions log, and an out-of-scope pointer. The stub never contains open questions.

Gates & guarantees

Section titled “Gates & guarantees”
  • Every question is multiple-choice with exactly one option marked (Recommended) listed first, a plain-English lead, and a one-sentence trade-off per option.
  • It never writes the stub while questions are still open.
  • It never writes child docs, plans, or code.
  • It never auto-chains into /c-design; handing off is a separate, explicit step you take.
Section titled “Related commands”
  • Next in the pipeline: /c-design turns the stub into a full design folder.
  • Deep dive: The Brainstorm stage for the concept and the one-question-at-a-time discipline.