$npx -y skills add sordi-ai/skill-everything --skill brainstormingApply when generating ideas, exploring solution space, or facilitating divergent thinking before committing to an approach.
| 1 | # Sub-Skill: Brainstorming |
| 2 | |
| 3 | **Purpose:** Maximize the quality of the eventual solution by ensuring sufficient exploration of the solution space before converging on an approach. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | --- |
| 6 | |
| 7 | ## Rules |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ### Divergence First |
| 10 | |
| 11 | 1. **Generate before evaluating.** Always complete a divergent generation phase before applying any evaluation criteria; premature judgment kills creative options. |
| 12 | 2. **Produce at least three alternatives.** Always generate at least three distinct alternatives before committing to an approach. Reference: ERR-2026-028 |
| 13 | 3. **Quantity over quality early.** Prefer producing many rough ideas over polishing a single idea during the generation phase; refinement comes later. |
| 14 | 4. **Loosen constraints deliberately.** Before generating, explicitly list the constraints you are relaxing (time, cost, technology) to open the solution space. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | ### Structured Exploration |
| 17 | |
| 18 | 5. **Timebox each phase.** Always set explicit time limits for divergent and convergent phases to prevent open-ended exploration from blocking delivery. |
| 19 | 6. **Use silent generation first.** Before group discussion, have each participant (or reasoning thread) generate ideas independently to avoid anchoring bias. |
| 20 | 7. **Apply devil's advocate.** After generating options, explicitly argue against the leading option to surface hidden weaknesses before committing. |
| 21 | 8. **Build on ideas, don't replace them.** Prefer extending or combining existing ideas over discarding them; hybrid solutions often outperform pure alternatives. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | ### Convergence |
| 24 | |
| 25 | 9. **Define decision criteria upfront.** Before evaluating options, agree on the criteria (performance, cost, maintainability) and their relative weights. |
| 26 | 10. **Categorize before ranking.** Group ideas by theme or approach before ranking; ranking ungrouped lists misses structural patterns. |
| 27 | 11. **Document rejected alternatives.** Always record why alternatives were rejected so future contributors understand the decision context. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | --- |
| 30 | |
| 31 | ## See also |
| 32 | |
| 33 | - `skills/self-extension-workflow/SKILL.md` |
| 34 | - `skills/error-log/SKILL.md` |