idea-explorer

# Idea Explorer

Explore, understand and refine ideas ready to be turned into designs and specs.

## Overview

Through collaboration, help turn ideas into better understood initiatives and goals that can be used by the spec-orchestrator or spec-writer skill to create detailed specifications and implementation plans.

Start by understanding the current project context, then ask questions one at a time to refine the idea. Once you understand what you're building, present the approach and understanding as a succinct summary (200-500 words), checking after each section whether it looks right so far.

## Arguments

- `topic` (positional): The idea or topic to explore
- `--depth=<quick|normal|thorough>`: How deep to explore (default: normal)
  - `quick`: Minimal questions, faster to refined idea
  - `normal`: Balanced exploration
  - `thorough`: Deep dive with more alternatives explored
- `--output=<path>`: Write the refined idea to a file

## Configuration

Check for `.claude/spec-workflow/config.yaml` in the project. If present, use configured paths:

```yaml
paths:
  specs: "./specs"  # Where to save output if --output not specified
```

If no config exists, default to `./specs/`.

### Philosophy Injection

If `.claude/spec-workflow/philosophy/exploration.md` exists, read it and incorporate its guidance into your exploration process. This file contains the user's philosophy about what makes exploration complete, what questions to always ask, and what red flags to surface.

## The Process

**1. Understand the context:**

Check out the current project state first by reading the repository contents, docs, recent commits.

**2. Understanding the idea and develop the intention, problem space and opportunity:**

This purpose of this step is to narrow down and clarify the idea, its purpose, constraints and success criteria.

- Ask questions one at a time to refine the idea
- Prefer multiple choice questions when possible, but open-ended is fine too
- Only one question per mes