meow:brainstorming

Structured technical ideation with scoring, technique selection, and plan-creator handoff.

What This Skill Does

meow:brainstorming explores technical solutions for validated problems. Given a problem description, it selects an ideation technique, generates 5-8 structured ideas, optionally scores them, and can hand the top idea off to meow:plan-creator for implementation planning.

Key differentiator from meow:office-hours: office-hours asks "should we build this?", brainstorming asks "how should we build this?"

Core Capabilities

• 4 ideation techniques — multi-alternative (default), first-principles, reverse, constraint-mapping
• Depth control — quick (ideas only) or deep (scored + action-plan ready)
• Structured scoring — feasibility, impact, simplicity, novelty with weighted totals
• Plan-creator handoff — top idea flows directly into plan creation with pre-research context
• Context budget — max 8 ideas per run to prevent context flooding
• Anti-bias rules — scores all ideas before comparing; flags conservative-only results

When to Use This

Use meow:brainstorming when...

• You have a validated problem and need technical solutions
• You want to compare 2-3 architectural approaches with trade-offs
• You need structured idea generation (not freeform chat)
• You want scored recommendations before committing to a plan

Don't use meow:brainstorming when...

• Problem isn't validated yet → use meow:office-hours
• You already have a plan → use meow:plan-eng-review
• You need to debug/investigate → use meow:investigate

Usage

# Quick brainstorm (default — 5-8 ideas, no scoring)
/meow:brainstorming how should we handle real-time notifications

# Deep brainstorm (scored ideas + top 3 recommendations)
/meow:brainstorming how to handle file uploads --depth deep

# Force a specific technique
/meow:brainstorming prevent auth failures --technique reverse

Techniques

Technique	When to use
multi-alternative	Default — "how to build X", multiple approaches exist
first-principles	Novel problem, no existing patterns
reverse	"How could this fail?" — debugging/prevention mindset
constraint-mapping	Many constraints, narrow solution space

Quick Workflow

Problem → Restate + Confirm → Select Technique
  → Generate Ideas (max 8) → Score (if deep)
  → Top 3 Recommendations → Plan Handoff (optional)

Skill Details

Phase: 1 (pre-planning) Used by: planner, brainstormer agents

Gotchas

• Premature solutioning: jumping to "how" before confirming "what" → force problem restatement first
• Anchoring on first idea: generate ALL ideas before evaluating any
• Context flooding: max 8 ideas per run — quality over quantity

Related

• meow:office-hours — Product validation BEFORE brainstorming
• meow:plan-creator — Creates plan FROM brainstorming output
• meow:plan-eng-review — Reviews existing plans