brainstorm-internal git:20260930.dd7591dA

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/99919f037c91cb76.

---
name: brainstorm-internal
description: The divergence technique CYPRESS applies to itself, with no user in the loop — generating genuinely distinct options against evidence already in hand, stating what would have to be true for each, and naming the one fact that would kill each. Use when a choice is the session's to make and the user has nothing to add to it - filling grill.md §7, assembling an ADR's rejected alternatives, choosing between two implementations that satisfy the same contract, or deciding how to sequence work. The user-facing mode is brainstorm-socratic; the protocol owns which mode you are in.
id: skill.brainstorm-internal
tier: 2
kind: skill
origin: seed
title: brainstorm-internal — divergence against your own evidence, with nobody to ask
owns:
  - brainstorm-internal.method
requires:
peers:
  - protocol.brainstorm
  - skill.brainstorm-socratic
  - skill.adr-writer
  - skill.grill-planner
load_when:
  - "generate options for a decision that is mine to make"
  - "what are the alternatives, nobody to ask"
  - "fill the rejected alternatives of an adr"
  - "two designs satisfy the same contract, which one"
  - "shaped options for the plan, no user input needed"
prevents: A decision recorded with one real option and two invented to flank it, so the rejected alternatives read as due diligence and the choice was never actually contested.
est_tokens: 1110
---

# brainstorm-internal

Some choices are not the user's. Which of two implementations satisfies
a contract better, how to sequence four increments, what an ADR should
record as rejected: the user has nothing to add, and asking costs a turn
and gets "you decide". This is the divergence technique for those.

This mode runs with nobody to ask: it sets no pace or cap, waits for no
confirmation, and exits on a written options set. The nine-question
machinery in `docs/graph/skills/brainstorm-socratic.md` belongs to the
other mode, the one with a user in it; `brainstorm.mode-selection` in
`docs/graph/protocols/brainstorm.md` says which mode you are in.

## The failure this exists to prevent

**A session brainstorming against itself generates one real option and
two strawmen.** It has already, quietly, decided; what it produces is
the decision plus two alternatives shaped to lose. The output looks
exactly like genuine divergence (three options, a comparison, a pick),
and an ADR built on it records rejected alternatives nobody ever
considered.

Every rule below exists because of that one failure.

## The method

1. **Write the decision as a question with at least two answers you
   could defend.** If you cannot defend the second answer, you have not
   found an option yet; you have found an objection to one. Go back.

2. **Generate against evidence already in hand**: the ledgers, the wiki
   pages, the specs, the source. This mode ONLY reads evidence in hand;
   web research is `agent.research-scout`'s, and questions to the user
   are `skill.brainstorm-socratic`'s. If a genuine option needs evidence
   you do not have, that is the finding: name it and say which of the
   two it would settle.

3. **For each option, state what would have to be true for it to be
   right.** Not its advantages: its *preconditions*. This is the step
   that kills strawmen, because an option whose preconditions you cannot
   write down is one you invented to lose.

4. **For each option, name the single fact that would kill it.** If an
   option has no kill condition it is not a real option; if two options
   share a kill condition they are one option described twice.

5. **Say which preconditions are already known true, known false, or
   unchecked.** Unchecked is the useful category and the one that gets
   collapsed: an option rejected on an unchecked precondition is
   rejected on a guess, and must be recorded as such.

6. **Pick, and record why the others lost**, each against its kill
   condition. The losers go into `grill.md` §7 or the ADR's rejected
   alternatives verbatim; that is what makes this mode's output worth
   producing rather than reasoning silently.

## Honesty checks before you exit

- Could a competent reader of the losing options tell they were
  seriously considered? If the answer depends on your say-so, they were
  not.
- Did any option change shape while you worked? Real divergence moves; a
  set that arrives finished was a decision wearing three hats.
- Is any option rejected on a precondition you never checked? Say so in
  the record, or check it.
- Did you produce exactly three options because three is the habit? Two
  defensible options beat three where one is filler.

## Exit conditions

- Each option carries its preconditions and its one kill condition.
- Every precondition is marked known-true, known-false, or unchecked.
- The pick names which kill condition retired each loser.
- The options set is written where the next step reads it: `grill.md`
  §7, an ADR's rejected alternatives, or the plan record.

If the decision turns out to need the user's confirmation, it was the
user's, and you are in the wrong mode: `brainstorm.mode-selection` is
the test, and switching is cheap while the options set is fresh.