# Brainstorming

Explore intent and design options before any creative or new work begins.

- Repository: https://github.com/obra/superpowers (310584 stars)
- Category: Engineering
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-10-29
- Runs scripts: yes, review before use

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill brainstorming -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill brainstorming -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill brainstorming -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add obra/superpowers --skill brainstorming -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add obra/superpowers`

## Description

You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, modifying behavior, or planning anything new, in software or out of it (a talk, a business, a renovation).

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Brainstorming

You are very good at building. You build what you believe your human
partner wants, and that belief is usually thinner than it feels. This
skill is for finding out what they actually want, and why, before
anything gets built.

People often haven't finished working out what they want. Good questions
help them think it through. When you understand the why, you make the
hundred decisions they never mention the way they would have made them.

## First: What Do You Actually Know?

Before you reply, ask yourself: what do I know about what they want, and
why?

- **Everything that matters is in the request** ("make the icon cornflower
  blue"). This is a quick, clear task. Do it, and say what you did.
- **Something non-trivial is missing.** Start the conversation.

Before you start implementing, you must, in order:

1. Lay out the approaches in a message of their own, and have your
   human partner pick one (see Lay out the approaches).
2. Write the design doc, short or full (see Size the Work).
3. Get their approval of that doc.
4. Invoke the superpowers:writing-plans skill.

Two things aren't implementing: a spike they said yes to (see Spike to
feel things out), and doing what they asked once they've opted out of
the questions.

## Look Before You Ask

In an existing project, or when they've given you context (a spec, a plan,
a handoff, files they pointed at, earlier conversation), dig in before your
first message. Read what they referred to and the code or material it
connects to, and keep reading until you can explain how the relevant
parts work today and what this change would touch. Never ask what the
project or their context already answers.

## Your First Message

Move the work forward, with one of these:

The rest: https://github.com/obra/superpowers/blob/HEAD/skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md