The planning path · in Claude Code
One idea, from brain dump to the next run.
A made-up feature — a garden where your bookmarks grow when you read them and wilt when you don't — taken from a rambling paragraph to reviewed commits. It fits in one session, so /ideation picks the interview depth; an effort too big to see the route would start at the map depth instead, and a settled one-line change at just do it. Every transcript below is the shape of a real run: the questions it asks, the findings it files, and the two places it stopped. For a real 0.x run — a contract, specs, and implementation notes, unedited — the repo keeps the archive of its own de-janking.
01The brain dump
No structure required. It names the depth it picked and why, then reads the mess and says what is strong and what is weak before it asks anything.
okay so hear me out — a bookmark garden. you save a link and that plants a seed, and when you go back and actually read it the thing grows. if you never touch it, it wilts. seasons maybe? idk. cozy.
Depth: interview. The loop is clear, but the scope and the success criteria aren’t. Say “short plan” to change it.
Stronga clear core loop: save → revisit → grow.
Weak“seasons” is a vibe, not a scope. “Wilts” has no clock.
02The interview
One question at a time, each arriving with a recommendation you can accept. The scoreboard is visible the whole way, and every gate is backed by an artifact — the schema file, the existing visit log, a check command.
Q1 What makes a plant grow — visits, or reading time?
Recommended: visits. There is no reading-time signal in your schema, and visits are already logged.
✓ accepted
Q2 When does a seed wilt?
Recommended: fourteen days without a visit, computed on read rather than by a job.
✓ accepted — “make the window configurable”
03The critics
Four read-only passes over the plan. Two blockers sent it back — and the hidden-dependency finding reopened the interview on the consistency gate rather than being noted and ignored.
scope-creep · BLOCKERscope.mvp[3], “seasons”, is in no unit and no check. Cut it or scope it.
hidden-dependency · BLOCKERWilting is time-based, but the plan never says where the clock lives — client, server, or database.
over-engineering · notableA wilt cron job is proposed where a computed-on-read query would do.
success-criteria · notable“Feels cozy” is not falsifiable. Replace or drop it.
04The plan
The plan lands as plan.json and a page. You answer what is still open there, and your answers come back as the next version. Then the run stops: the page cannot approve, so one question in the terminal does.
[1.3]Who can change the wilt window: each user, or one app setting? Recommended: one app setting.
✓ kept as proposed
mvpsave → seed · visit → growth · wilt query · the garden view
fulla configurable wilt window
not changingseasons, with the decision that ruled them out recorded on its claim
Approve plan v2 and run it? › Approve and run · Needs changes · Stop here
05Execution
Approval writes the run contract and one work packet per unit, and autopilot builds them in waves on an isolation branch. Each unit is reviewed before it lands, and each commit carries its Ideation-Unit trailer, so a resumed run skips what is already done.
06The harvest
The run ends and the filter asks once, for at most three candidates. Nothing reaches learnings.md unless you accept it.
▣Time-based behavior never said where the clock lives — ask it in the consistency gate. accepted
☐The garden view needed empty-state art the plan never mentioned. dismissed
☐Parallel waves finished faster than estimated. dismissed — not a lesson
07Weeks later
A new idea arrives, and the interview names what it learned last time, out loud, at the question it shapes. This is the stage that cannot stop you; it just points back at 02.
new idea — a reading-streak greenhouse. three days in a row and a flower opens. resets at midnight.
Applying learning from bookmark-garden (2026-09-24): “resets at midnight” is elapsed-time behavior, so I am asking where the clock lives first.
Q1 Whose midnight — and which process notices it?
Your idea is messier than this one.
That is fine — the mess is the input. Install it, run /ideation, and answer honestly. Clearer change, and working in Pi? The Pi walkthrough takes one change from /ideation to accept.
/plugin marketplace add nicknisi/ideation/plugin install ideation@ideation