brainstorming

The superpowers brainstorming skill translated into an OpenExpertise flow: load a seed question and angles, diverge across three angles in parallel via Claude Code, cluster the ideas into themes, critique each cluster adversarially, then synthesize the top 3 picks.

What it demonstrates

• The superpowers brainstorming skill as a durable, replayable YAML graph
• diverge fan-out: one Claude Code call per angle with for_each.concurrency: 3 — all three in parallel
• critique fan-out: one Claude Code call per cluster with for_each.concurrency: 2
• array_append merge: raw ideas from all angles accumulate into one flat list
• Mixed node kinds: tool + cli-agent + agent in one graph
• Persistent state: every idea, cluster, critique, and final picks live in SQLite

The graph

load_seed → diverge (cli-agent, for_each ×3 angles, concurrency:3)
                  │
                  ▼
              cluster (agent)
                  │
                  ▼
          critique (cli-agent, for_each ×N clusters, concurrency:2)
                  │
                  ▼
            synthesize (agent)

Phases: seed → diverge → converge → critique → synthesize.

State schema

Field	Type	Merge	Description
topic	string	—	The question to brainstorm
angles	array<object>	—	[{name, description}] loaded from fixtures/seed.json
raw_ideas	array<object>	array_append	All 15 ideas from 3 angles × 5 ideas each
clusters	array<object>	—	[{id, name, description, idea_indices}] from cluster
critiques	array<object>	array_append	One critique per cluster: {cluster_id, biggest_weakness, what_we_dont_know, best_idea_in_cluster}
picks	object	—	{top_3[], reasoning, next_actions[]} — the final output

How it runs

# Uses the bundled seed: "How should an open-source dev-tools project
# reduce time-to-first-successful-run for new users?"
oe run examples/brainstorming --tui

The claude CLI must be on PATH and authenticated. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (or OPENAI_API_KEY) must be set for the cluster and synthesize agent nodes. Expected wall time: 3–5 minutes.

After the run:

oe state picks           # top 3 + reasoning + next actions
oe state clusters        # thematic clusters
oe state raw_ideas       # all 15 ideas across 3 angles

What happens, step by step

1. Seed

load_seed reads fixtures/seed.json and writes topic and angles to state. The default seed uses three contrasting angles: practitioner, contrarian, and analogist.

2. Diverge (parallel fan-out)

diverge runs once per angle via for_each: { source: $.angles, concurrency: 3 }. All three Claude Code calls fire in parallel. Each receives $item (the current angle's name and description) and generates exactly 5 concrete, specific ideas. Results merge into raw_ideas via array_append — 15 ideas total.

Example for the default topic:

• practitioner angle: "Add a setup --dry-run flag that prints what would happen without making changes"
• contrarian angle: "Remove all optional flags — make the first run unconditionally succeed on a default project"
• analogist angle: "Borrow the Homebrew pattern: one copy-paste command that self-configures"

3. Cluster

The cluster agent reads topic and all 15 raw_ideas and groups them into 3–5 thematic clusters. Each cluster gets an id, name, description, and the indices of which ideas it contains.

4. Critique (fan-out)

critique runs once per cluster via for_each: { source: $.clusters, concurrency: 2 }. Each iteration asks Claude Code to identify the biggest_weakness, what_we_dont_know, and the best_idea_in_cluster. Results merge into critiques.

5. Synthesize

synthesize reads topic, all raw_ideas, clusters, and critiques and returns the final picks object: the top 3 ideas that survived critique, the reasoning, and next_actions.

$ oe state picks
{
  "top_3": [
    {"idea": "Add a setup --dry-run flag...", "why_strongest": "..."},
    ...
  ],
  "reasoning": "...",
  "next_actions": ["..."]
}

Run on your own topic

Edit fixtures/seed.json:

{
  "topic": "<your open-ended, specific question>",
  "angles": [
    { "name": "<angle-1>", "description": "<framing for this angle>" },
    { "name": "<angle-2>", "description": "..." },
    { "name": "<angle-3>", "description": "..." }
  ]
}

Pick angles that genuinely differ — three variations of the same perspective produce three variations of the same ideas.

Mapping to the superpowers skill

Superpowers phase	OE node
Diverge (multi-angle ideation)	diverge (cli-agent, for_each)
Cluster (theme grouping)	cluster (agent)
Critique (poke holes)	critique (cli-agent, for_each)
Synthesize (pick top 3)	synthesize (agent)

Source

examples/brainstorming/