To Design

---
name: to-design
description: Formalizes a multi-step initiative as a design doc in the Brain plus a tracking epic bead. Use when an initiative is multi-step, crosses modules, or carries meaningful unknowns — before it is decomposed into work items — or when arriving from grill-decisions or find-unknowns with a shape worth writing down.
---

# To Design

Synthesize the current conversation context and codebase understanding into a design doc under
`.brain/designs/`, then open the epic that tracks it. `DOTBRAIN.md` governs the doc over its whole
life; this skill covers authoring it.

## Stop before you start

A design doc earns its keep only when the initiative is multi-step, crosses modules or workflows,
needs explicit scope boundaries, or carries meaningful unknowns. Small, obvious, single-item
changes go straight into beads instead.

If the initiative warrants an ADR, stop and run `grill-decisions` first. ADRs own durable decision
rationale; this doc owns the initiative's design, unknowns, and rollout.

State the one-sentence reason this needs a doc rather than a bead before creating anything.

## Process

### 1. Read the local operating context

Read the nearest `AGENTS.md`, `CONTEXT.md`, and the ADRs and design docs relevant to
the initiative. If `.brain/docs/` holds runbooks or reference notes bearing on the work, read those
too.

Completion: every concept this initiative touches is paired with the project's existing term or
flagged as needing a new one, and every ADR it interacts with is listed.

### 2. Surface the unknowns before writing

Territory you have not inspected produces designs that break on contact. For unfamiliar codebases
or broad changes, run `find-unknowns` — it is the blind-spot pass, and its output seeds
`Known Unknowns` directly.

Where the area is already familiar, inspect the relevant modules yourself and produce a short
module sketch for the user: touched modules or systems, likely integration points, obvious
constraints, open questions.

Confirm the sketch with the user before creating anything.

Completion: every module the initiative touches is either inspected or listed as a known
unknown, and the user has confirmed the sketch.

### 3. Write the design doc

Design docs use the same sequential naming as ADRs: scan `.brain/designs/` for the highest existing
`NNNN-` prefix and increment by one (`0001` if none exist yet).

Copy `templates/design.md` to `.brain/designs/<NNNN>-<slug>.md` and fill it in. The template carries
the section set, per-section authoring hints, and the lifecycle rules that apply after authoring.

The doc is born `lifecycle: draft`; flip it to `active` in step 4, once the epic exists.

Use `CONTEXT.md` vocabulary exactly for every concept it already names.

Completion: every section you kept is filled, every section you dropped is deleted along with
its hints, and each goal has a matching entry under `Success Criteria`.

### 4. Create the epic bead

Create the tracking epic and link it back to the design doc:

```bash
bd create "<Design title>" --type epic --description "See .brain/designs/<NNNN>-<slug>.md" --spec-id design:<NNNN>-<slug>
```

`--spec-id` links the work graph back to the design doc. The epic stays private even when the
project configures a public tracker; attach `--external-ref` only when this initiative was promoted
from an already-existing public collaboration issue.

Set the doc's frontmatter to `lifecycle: active`.

Completion: the epic exists, its `--spec-id` matches the doc slug, and the doc reads
`lifecycle: active`.

### 5. Hand off

Summarize what was created: the design doc path and the epic bead ID. Recommend `to-issues` as the
next step.

## What goes where

Three artifacts hold different material, and the design doc holds only the middle one:

- **Beads** hold execution: ready, blocked, done, dependencies, claims, acceptance, and
  item-local implementation facts.
- **The design doc** holds the initiative's design story: shape and interfaces, verification
  criteria, unknowns, deviations, rollout.
- **ADRs** hold durable, cross-cutting, expensive-to-reverse decisions and their rationale. Link
  them from the design doc; state the rationale once, in the ADR.