Ctrl K

Quick Ref / Command

Engineer Kit

/ak:brainstorm

Bounded outcome and option design

Turns unclear intent or meaningful solution choices into an accepted delivery contract: outcome, constraints, non-goals, acceptance criteria, evidence-backed options, recommendation, and handoff to plan, cook, or fix.

Decide if the gate applies

Reuse or capture contract

Stay proportional

Route bugs through diagnosis

Rule 01

Brainstorm shapes intent and options; it does not implement the solution.

Rule 02

Do not turn a clear request into a ceremonial interview; proportional behavior matters.

Rule 03

Challenge assumptions with evidence, not vibes.

Rule 04

Full requested scope remains default; --yagni is required to cut unnecessary scope.

Execution Map

Core lanes from input to output, aligned with the command's real execution path.

Start

Input, scope, route

1 Decide if the gate applies Direct answers and low-level read-only utilities skip the design loop; multi-step delivery or workspace mutation must satisfy the opening contract gate.
2 Reuse or capture contract Reuse an accepted design or plan when it already has outcome, constraints, non-goals, and acceptance criteria; otherwise capture those four fields.

Work

Agent / skill execution

3 Stay proportional For concrete requests, summarize and continue; ask only when a missing answer materially changes the result, safety boundary, or public contract and cannot be discovered.
4 Route bugs through diagnosis For failures, frame expected repaired behavior, scout the affected path, capture failing state, and prove root cause before comparing cause-aligned repairs.

Verify

Gate, review, validation

5 Inspect relevant evidence Read the smallest useful source, docs, tests, current plans, or live state before claiming an approach is feasible; separate discoverable unknowns from true uncertainty.
6 Compare material choices Present up to three viable approaches with meaningful trade-offs, evidence gaps, load-bearing assumptions, first failure conditions, and worst plausible cases.

Report, handoff, artifact

7 Recommend and resolve Choose the smallest approach that satisfies the contract; when assumptions cannot be resolved now, prefer the path that is cheapest to abandon and resolve material disagreement before implementation.
8 Handoff or stop Pass contract, chosen direction, evidence, and unresolved risks to plan, cook, or fix; for exploration-only work, report the recommendation and stop.

Syntax, arguments, subcommands

How to invoke the skill: syntax, positional arguments, shared options, then each subcommand with its own syntax and outcome.

Syntax

/ak:brainstorm [topic or problem] [--advice] [--html] [--report] [--ultra] [--yagni] [--no-antv|--no-diagram-design|--no-editorial-visuals]

Arguments

[topic or problem]

Decision to shape

Natural-language request, problem, bug choice, or product/code/docs maintenance direction to turn into a bounded contract and recommendation.

/ak:brainstorm "Choose how to add offline draft recovery to the editor. Preserve current storage formats, avoid a new service, and define observable recovery behavior."

Shared options

--advice

Advisory checkpoints

Adds kongming counsel after decisions, when blocked, and before high-risk choices. Counsel cannot edit, approve, or widen authority.

/ak:brainstorm "Choose an auth migration direction" --advice

--ultra

Best-of-5 verifier

Runs five independent read-only brainstorm drafts against the same evidence and rubric. A verifier selects one unchanged or rejects all; it does not blend candidates.

/ak:brainstorm "Compare three data-sync approaches" --ultra

--yagni

Cut unneeded scope

Challenges and removes work not needed for the stated outcome. Without this flag, the skill preserves the full requested scope and rejects only unrequested additions.

/ak:brainstorm "Simplify the onboarding redesign" --yagni

--no-antv

No AntV visuals

Disables optional AntV KPI/card visuals for the HTML brief. It does not change the delivery contract.

/ak:brainstorm "Plan a dashboard refresh" --html --no-antv

--no-diagram-design

No comparison diagram layer

Disables optional diagram-design comparison visuals for the HTML brief. It does not remove the required delivery-flow diagram or change the contract.

/ak:brainstorm "Compare onboarding flows" --html --no-diagram-design

--no-editorial-visuals

No editorial visuals

Disables all optional editorial visual layers for the HTML brief. Required content and the delivery contract remain unchanged.

/ak:brainstorm "Choose a launch page structure" --html --no-editorial-visuals

Output / publish flags

Only flags that change the artifact or publish it. Not the full option set.

--html

Self-contained HTML brief

Writes brainstorm.html in the configured report location with contract fields, trade-offs, recommendation, risks, at least one delivery-flow diagram, and annotated UI mockups when the topic touches UI/UX.

Example

/ak:brainstorm "Plan a dashboard refresh" --html

--report

Markdown decision report

Persists the accepted brainstorm as a timestamped Markdown report in the active plan reports directory, standalone plans/reports, or injected Report path.

Example

/ak:brainstorm "Choose an API migration path" --report

Composable flags

How options work together on one invocation. This does not replace the option cards above.

--advice adds kongming supervision at phase, stuck, and high-stakes checkpoints.

--ultra composes with --html, --report, --advice, and --yagni.

--no-antv, --no-diagram-design, and --no-editorial-visuals only affect HTML visual treatment.

Sample Prompt

Concrete invocations for each flag, subcommand, mode, or route available in the live workflow.

Feature direction Recommended

/ak:brainstorm "Choose how to add offline draft recovery to the editor. Preserve current storage formats, avoid a new service, and define observable recovery behavior."

Use when:: Use at the opening of multi-step delivery when the desired outcome is clear enough to discuss but the approach is not settled.
Expected:: Frames the four-field delivery contract, inspects relevant evidence before feasibility claims, compares up to three material approaches, recommends the smallest fitting direction, and hands off to plan, cook, or fix.

Durable report

/ak:brainstorm "Pick an architecture for preview sharing" --report

Use when:: Use when the accepted brainstorm needs a timestamped Markdown decision record in the configured plan or standalone reports location.
Expected:: Persists a Markdown report with frontmatter, summary, the four contract fields, compared options, recommendation, unresolved questions last, and the active-plan or standalone reports path convention.

Self-contained HTML brief

/ak:brainstorm "Landing page structure for the launch" --html

Use when:: Use when the brainstorm should produce a local previewable brief alongside the delivery contract, especially for UI or UX decisions.
Expected:: Writes brainstorm.html in the configured report location with inline CSS/JS, no network-required assets, the contract and option comparison, a required delivery-flow diagram, and annotated UI mockups when the topic touches UI/UX.

Ultra verifier pass

/ak:brainstorm "Compare three data-sync approaches" --ultra --yagni

Use when:: Use when a high-stakes delivery direction justifies five independent read-only candidate brainstorms and a verifier ranking pass.
Expected:: Builds one immutable evidence packet and rubric, dispatches exactly five read-only candidates, has a verifier select one winning contract unchanged or reject all, records a short ranking appendix, and applies --yagni scope cuts.

Handled Scope

Decide if the gate applies
Reuse or capture contract
Stay proportional
Route bugs through diagnosis
Inspect relevant evidence
Compare material choices