Brainstorm Skill

The Brainstorm Skill (atelier-brainstorm) helps you think through a TODO item interactively. It asks clarifying questions to explore the idea from multiple angles, then adds nested bullet points back to the TODO file capturing the insights.

When to use

• You have a TODO item and want to think through solutions before planning
• You want to capture rough analysis notes inline in your TODO file
• You have a bug and want to explore root causes and potential fixes
• You have a feature idea and want to explore design options quickly

Arguments

• todo_path — (Required) Absolute path to the TODO.md file containing the item to brainstorm.
• todo — (Optional) The exact text of the TODO item to brainstorm. If not provided, the skill asks which item to brainstorm.

What it does

1. Finds the TODO item — Reads the TODO.md file and locates the item to brainstorm. If todo is not provided, lists unchecked items and asks you to pick one.
2. Chooses a brainstorm mode — Asks what kind of thinking you want:
   • Root cause & fixes — Dig into why something is happening and explore fixes (best for bugs).
   • Approach & design — Explore how to implement or structure the solution (best for features).
   • Open exploration — Free-form brainstorm across any relevant angles.
3. Asks brainstorming questions — Asks 2–4 tailored questions based on the chosen mode. May search the codebase between questions to ground suggestions in real code.
4. Synthesizes bullet points — Generates concise, scannable bullets with prefixes like Root cause:, Fix:, Consider:, Nice-to-have:. Shows you the bullets before writing.
5. Updates TODO.md — Adds the bullet points as indented sub-items directly under the TODO item.

Invocation

From the kanban board, use Brainstorm on a todo card. The default prompt template is:

Brainstorm {{title}} using /atelier-brainstorm todo_path={{file}}

You can also run in Claude Code: /atelier-brainstorm todo_path=./TODO.md todo="Add dark mode toggle"