brainstorm-prototypes
Generate several genuinely different throwaway variations (designs, approaches, drafts) for the user to react to. Use when the user can only recognize what they want by seeing it — visual design, UX flows, naming, tone — or asks to brainstorm or prototype before building.
npx skills add Neeeophytee/finding-unknowns-skills --skill brainstorm-prototypes --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Brainstorm and prototypes The user has unknown knowns: criteria they can't verbalize but will recognize on sight. Finding those during prototyping is cheap; finding them mid-implementation is expensive, because small spec changes can mean drastically different code. Give them things to react to. ## Steps 1. Establish scope first: what is being decided (layout? approach? data model? tone?) and what is explicitly out of scope. One decision per round. 2. Produce 3-5 variations that are **wildly different, not shades of the same idea**. If two variations would get the same reaction, replace one. 3. Make them cheap and disposable: - Visual/UX → a single self-contained HTML file with fake data, no backend, no state. - Approaches → a one-screen sketch of each: the idea, what it optimizes for, its sharpest tradeoff. - Ranked lists → order from cheapest to most ambitious so the user can draw their line. 4. Label each variation with the belief it bets on ("this one assumes density beats whitespace"), so the user's reaction reveals the underlying criterion, not just a preference. 5. Collect reactions, then verbalize what was learned: "you consistently rejected X, which suggests the real req
- Steps
- Guardrails
What does the brainstorm-prototypes skill do?
Generate several genuinely different throwaway variations (designs, approaches, drafts) for the user to react to. Use when the user can only recognize what they want by seeing it — visual design, UX flows, naming, tone — or asks to brainstorm or prototype before building.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add Neeeophytee/finding-unknowns-skills --skill brainstorm-prototypes --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From Neeeophytee/finding-unknowns-skills, a repository with 298 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.