Research Idea Brainstorming
Guides researchers through structured frameworks to generate and test research ideas
- Repository
- Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs
- Stars
- 14,195
- Licence
- MIT
- Files
- 1 file
What it does
This skill gives an AI agent a set of structured thinking methods for turning vague curiosity into concrete research proposals. Once installed, the agent walks you through lenses such as problem-first versus solution-first thinking, moving up or down levels of abstraction, resolving trade-offs between competing goals, and borrowing ideas from other fields, with checklists and steps for each. It is a prompt-based guide only; it does not run code or fetch outside information.
Great for
- Academic researchers or PhD students looking for a new project direction
- Teams preparing a brainstorming session and wanting a structured agenda
- Researchers who feel stuck and want fresh angles on existing work
Skip it if
- People who already have a defined research question and need experimental or methodology help, since the skill says to use domain-specific skills for that
- Literature reviews, which the skill itself redirects to a separate literature-review skill
- Anyone expecting verified novelty checks: the skill generates ideas but does not search papers to confirm they are unexplored
Try asking
- “Help me classify my idea as problem-first or solution-first and check whether the problem really matters”
- “Use the abstraction ladder to explore directions from my current work on retrieval accuracy in RAG systems”
- “Find performance versus efficiency trade-offs in my area that could be a research contribution”
- “Suggest analogies from neuroscience or control theory that could transfer to my ML problem”
Install in 3 steps
- 1
Download the skill
The ZIP contains the 1 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.
brainstorming-research-ideas.zip - 2
Add it to your agent
Claude Code (all projects)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip brainstorming-research-ideas.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)
mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip brainstorming-research-ideas.zip -d .claude/skills/Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.
- 3
Ask for the task
No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.
Get better results
- Give the agent a one-sentence description of your current research focus so the frameworks have something concrete to work on
- Ask for one framework at a time, then combine them once you have candidate ideas
- Check any suggested novelty against recent literature yourself, since the skill does not verify it
What's inside
- SKILL.md
Redistributed unmodified from Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.