How to use the Brainstorming Before Building agent skill

What the brainstorming skill makes the agent do

When you ask the agent to create or change something, the skill tells it to check its own assumptions first. If your request already contains what matters, the agent does the task and says what it did. If something important is missing, it starts a conversation: it asks one focused question at a time, reads your existing project if there is one, and proposes a few ways to build the thing with trade-offs.

The skill requires that the agent lays out the approaches, you pick one, and you approve a written design before any implementation begins. Simple, clearly specified tasks skip this process.

• Asks questions about what you want and why, instead of guessing
• Reads the existing project or the material you point to before asking
• Presents two or three approaches with trade-offs and a recommendation
• Waits for your approval of a design before writing code
• Can offer an optional browser view for mockups or visual options

Install the brainstorming skill from the ZIP

Download the ZIP for the brainstorming skill from this page and unzip it. The skill is a folder that contains a SKILL.md file. Put that folder in one of these locations, depending on how you want to use it:

• Personal use across projects: unzip into ~/.claude/skills/
• One project only: unzip into the project's .claude/skills/ folder
• In the Claude apps: upload the skill under Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Trigger the skill with natural requests

You do not need a special command. Describe the thing you want to create or change, in plain words, and say what you are unsure about. The skill is written to run whenever the agent is asked to create or change something non-trivial. You can also ask for brainstorming by name, which tells the agent you want a design conversation rather than code.

If you want the agent to skip the questions, say so. The skill allows you to opt out and have the agent proceed with what you asked.

• "Let's brainstorm a booking feature for my salon app before we build anything."
• "I want to plan a renovation of my kitchen. Ask me what I need before suggesting anything."
• "Help me think through a website for my bakery."
• "Make the icon cornflower blue." (a quick task, so the agent will just do it)

Examples of a good session

For a bakery website, the agent does not ask for a list of pages. It asks what someone should do when they land on the site, because that answer decides whether the site shows hours and the day's products or takes orders. It then proposes a direction and waits for your correction.

In an existing project, the agent reads the relevant code first and reports how it works today and what your change would touch, so your questions focus on decisions the code cannot answer.

What you need before you start

The skill itself is a set of instructions for the agent. The optional visual companion is a set of scripts, and it has its own requirements. Read them before you turn it on.

• Bash shell and Node.js, to run the optional visual companion scripts
• A browser, to view the visual companion pages
• The skill runs scripts, but it does not use the network

Safety notes for the visual companion

The optional visual companion includes scripts (scripts/start-server.sh and scripts/stop-server.sh) that serve a local web page showing mockups or options. The companion can bind to a network address, so do not start it on a shared or remote machine. Stop it with scripts/stop-server.sh when you finish.

You can skip the visual companion entirely. The rest of the skill works through conversation alone.

• Do not run the companion on a shared or remote machine
• Stop the companion when you are done
• Review the scripts in the folder before running them

Tips for getting the most out of it

Answer the agent's questions in your own words. The skill is designed to learn from your descriptions, and your wording often carries intent that a menu of options would miss.

If the agent proposes a sensible default, you can accept it or correct it. When you say you want to just guess, the agent proposes something concrete instead of asking again.

• Give context early: a spec, a plan or files you have already written
• Say why you want the thing, not just what it is
• Use the visual companion for layouts, flows and side-by-side options
• Ask for a quick spike when you want to feel out an idea before committing to a design