When this skill fires
The skill description reads: “You MUST use this before any creative work — creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation.” This means it fires when you say things like:- “Let’s build a login feature”
- “Add a dashboard to the app”
- “I want to create a new API endpoint”
- “Let’s refactor the payment module”
What it does
Brainstorming guides you through a structured discovery process: understand the current project, ask targeted clarifying questions, propose 2–3 approaches with trade-offs, present a design for approval, write the design document, then hand off to the writing-plans skill. It does not write a single line of production code. The hard gate is announced explicitly at the start:“Design HARD-GATE: I will not write code or scaffold files until you approve this design.”
How it works
Explore project context
Check existing files, docs, and recent commits to understand what already exists before asking any questions. For greenfield projects with no existing files, skip this step and start directly with clarifying questions.
Ensure Planning Mode
Prompt you to switch Antigravity to Planning Mode if not already active. This phase requires deep thinking, not fast execution.
Ask clarifying questions
Ask one question at a time — never multiple at once. Prefer multiple-choice questions when possible. The goal is to understand: purpose, constraints, and success criteria. Stop at 3–5 questions once you can restate the goal in one sentence, know the top constraint, and understand the success criteria.
Propose 2–3 approaches
Present multiple approaches with trade-offs. Lead with the recommended option and explain why. Never propose a single option without alternatives.
Present the design
Walk through the design section by section — architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing — and ask after each section whether it looks right. Scale each section to its complexity.
Incorporate feedback
If you approve with modifications: incorporate the changes, re-present only the changed section, then continue. Unchanged sections are not re-presented.
Write design document
Save the validated design to
docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md and commit it to git.The terminal state is loading the writing-plans skill. If the agent loads any other skill (frontend-design, mcp-builder, etc.) after brainstorming, that is incorrect behavior.
Key principles
- One question at a time — Never overwhelm with multiple questions in a single message
- YAGNI ruthlessly — Remove unnecessary features from every design
- Incremental validation — Present the design in sections and get approval before moving on
- Multiple-choice preferred — Easier to answer than open-ended questions when possible
Example scenario
You say: “I want to add user notifications to the app.” The brainstorming skill fires. The agent:- Checks existing code for any notification-related files
- Asks: “What types of notifications do you need — in-app, email, or both?”
- After your answer: “Do users need to configure notification preferences, or is it all-on for now?”
- After 3–4 questions, proposes: Option A (DB polling), Option B (message queue), Option C (SSE), with trade-offs
- Presents design sections one at a time, adjusting based on your feedback
- Saves
docs/plans/2026-03-17-notifications-design.md - Loads the writing-plans skill
Related skills
Writing plans
The next step after brainstorming — converts the approved design into a task-by-task implementation plan.
Architecture design
Fires during brainstorming when the task involves significant system-wide design decisions.
Deep research
Fires during brainstorming when comparing options requires current external information.
Confidence check
Verifies readiness before implementation begins after the plan is written.