Ce BrainstormCAUTION

Official Compound Engineering plugin for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and more

The instruction file, verbatim from the audited commit — this is the text the model reads, and the surface the audit's instruction layer examines. Quoted here so you can judge it without cloning anything.

---
name: ce-brainstorm
description: "Explore vague or ambitious ideas into a right-sized requirements-only unified plan. Use when the user wants to brainstorm or scope what to build. Not for executing already-specified work. Use ce-pov for a verdict on adopting a named external technology."
argument-hint: "[feature idea or problem to explore] [output:html]"
---

# Brainstorm a Feature or Improvement

Brainstorming answers **WHAT** to build through dialogue; `ce-plan` then enriches the same unified plan artifact with **HOW**. This skill does not implement code. **The current year is 2026**, for dating the artifact.

**Outcome:** a result sized to the work that `ce-plan` can build on without inventing product behavior, scope boundaries, or success criteria: a chat paragraph for Lightweight work, or a requirements-only unified plan under `<root>/plans/` when a file is earned.

**Done, on the brainstorm path:** that artifact is written and passes the Ready for Planning Check — or no file was written because the dialogue produced no decision that a later reader (the planner, a reviewer, or a future reader) needs recorded under a stable ID and the user asked for none — and Phase 4's handoff has been presented.

**Lightweight work ends in chat.** Phase 0.3 classifies the tier from the request and bounded inline reads before anything is dispatched; when the tier is uncertain, take the heavier one. Lightweight work — small, well-bounded, low ambiguity — ends in a chat paragraph with no file, no grounding scout, no approach generation, and no claim verifier. A file is earned only by a decision that a later reader needs recorded under a stable ID, or by the user asking for one.

**Stop and route instead** in three cases, decided by `references/phase-0.md`, not from memory. Each ends the run its own way, so the done condition above does not apply: non-software work, where `references/universal-brainstorming.md` replaces Phases 0.2–4; a verdict question about a named external candidate, where you offer the `ce-pov` handoff; and neither — quick help, a factual question, a single-step task — answered directly.

The feature description is what the invocation carries, whether the user wrote it or a calling skill passed it. If none came, ask the user what they want to explore and do not proceed until you have one.

**`mode:return-to-caller`** (a leading token a calling skill such as `lfg` sets): strip it, run the dialogue unchanged, and replace Phase 4 with the structured return `references/handoff.md` defines: no menu, no `lfg` or `ce-plan` invocation.


## Artifact Root

Resolve `<root>` the first time you compose or read a `<root>/` path, never earlier; a scratch-only or no-repo run that touches none skips this entirely.

<!-- ce-docs-root:start -->
**Resolve the CE artifact root `<root>` before composing any artifact path.**

- **Read** `docs_root` from `<repo-root>/.compound-engineering/config.yaml` only (`<repo-root>` = `git rev-parse --show-toplevel`). Do not read it from `config.local.yaml`. Unset -> `<root>` is `docs`, exactly as before.
- **Validate** a set value: a repo-relative directory whose real, symlink-resolved path stays inside the repo and is neither the repo root nor under `.git/`. Otherwise stop with an error naming `docs_root` and the value -- never fall back to `docs`.
- **Use** `<root>` as the sole artifact location: create it if absent, compose each path as `<root>/<subdir>` with this skill's own subdirectory, and never also read `docs`.
<!-- ce-docs-root:end -->

`brainstorm_output` and `brainstorm_model` resolve by this rule instead:

<!-- ce-config-layers:start -->
**Resolve ordinary CE yaml keys from the two repo files.**

- **Read** `<repo-root>/.compound-engineering/config.local.yaml`, then `config.yaml` (`<repo-root>` = `git rev-parse --show-toplevel`). Missing files are skipped. Gitignore does not change resolution.
- **Win** with the first active (non-commented) value. For scalars, empty is unset; an invalid value continues to the next layer, then the skill default. For lists and maps, a present key — including an empty list or map — replaces the whole key.
- **Do not** use this rule for `docs_root` — that key is `config.yaml` only.
<!-- ce-config-layers:end -->

## Execution Flow

Phases run in this order. Each names the files it cannot run correctly without: read them when you reach it, and never do its work from this table alone.

| Phase | Read first | What only those files carry |
|---|---|---|
| before the first question, and for the whole run — non-software route included | Read `references/interaction-rules.md` | the Core Principles, and the Interaction Rules: one question per turn, ask only decisions the environment cannot settle, the blocking-question-tool default and the visual-probe gate that overrides it, when a question is genuinely open-ended, and the one `ce-prototype` routing test this skill states in full there |
| before treating a decision the conversation carries as settled | Read `references/settled-decisions.md` | the settlement test; skipping it re-asks a decided question or promotes an unexamined assertion |
| 0.0 output mode | `references/output-mode.md` | the `OUTPUT_FORMAT` precedence; the token-parsing convention |
| 0.1–0.4 resume, classify, route, scope | `references/phase-0.md` | resume scan; the stop-and-route classification; scope tiers; the coherent-work gate (is this one piece of work?); both tripwires (visual or spatial features; unfamiliar territory); the task list |
| 1 understand the idea | `references/dialogue.md` | context scan and grounding scout; opt-in Slack researcher; pressure test; blindspot and visual-probe gates; the conflict gate against existing `CONCEPTS.md` and verified code; Phase 1.3 exit condition |
| 2–2.6 approaches, synthesis, verification | `references/approaches.md`, plus `references/synthesis-summary.md` before composing the synthesis | approach generation; model elevation; the scoping synthesis; the claim ve

CAUTIONgrade B · trust 89/100 Install with care. The audit found things worth knowing before you trust its output.

What the source does

Filesystem

declared (5 observation(s))

Network

declared (4 observation(s))

Shell

none-observed

Dependencies

pinned

Secrets in source

none-found

Findings (8)

.agy/plugin.json

.agy/skills

.claude/skills

const url = new URL(req.url, "http://127.0.0.1")

const documentId = new URL(req.url, "http://127.0.0.1").searchParams.get("document")

CLAUDE.md

site/_guides

const hash = createHash("sha1")

Gates applied: no_behavioural_pass.

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