name: nf:idea-refine description: Refines vague product or workflow ideas into a focused direction, MVP scope, assumptions, and the right next nForma workflow.

idea-refine skill

Purpose

Refine a rough product, workflow, or tooling idea into a small, actionable direction worth planning or building. This skill fills the gap before task-intake and before nForma's roadmap-driven planning commands.

When to use

• A user has a vague feature, product, or workflow idea
• The team wants to explore options before opening an issue
• The request is too early for /nf:plan-phase or task-intake
• The user needs help reducing scope, exposing assumptions, or choosing an MVP

High-level steps the skill should follow

1. Frame the problem

• Restate the idea as a single clear problem statement
• Identify the target user and the signal of success

1. Expand the space

• Ask 3-5 sharp questions that expose missing context
• Generate 4-7 materially different approaches
• Prefer meaningful variations, not cosmetic rewrites

1. Converge

• Cluster the strongest directions
• Stress-test them for user value, feasibility, and differentiation
• Surface hidden assumptions and obvious ways the idea could fail

1. Narrow to an MVP

• Recommend one direction
• Define the smallest version worth building
• State what is explicitly out of scope

1. Route the next step

• If the idea is ready for issue creation, recommend task-intake
• If it is ready for project planning, recommend /nf:new-project or /nf:new-milestone
• If discovery is still needed, state the open questions directly

Output format

Return a markdown one-pager with these sections:

• # <Idea name>
• ## Problem Statement
• ## Target User
• ## Success Signal
• ## Candidate Directions
• ## Recommended Direction
• ## Key Assumptions to Validate
• ## MVP Scope
• ## Not Doing
• ## Open Questions
• ## Recommended Next nForma Step

Best practices / rules

• Push toward simplicity. Reduce scope before adding cleverness.
• Do not jump to implementation details before the problem is clear.
• Do not generate more than 7 candidate directions.
• Challenge weak ideas directly and explain why.
• Make tradeoffs explicit with a real Not Doing section.
• If the codebase already provides strong primitives, reuse them in the recommendation.
• If context is missing, make uncertainty visible instead of inventing answers.

Integration notes

• This skill complements task-intake; it does not replace it.
• Use this before task-intake when the request is still fuzzy.
• Use this before /nf:new-project or /nf:new-milestone when the milestone scope is still unsettled.
• If the user confirms a direction, the resulting one-pager can be converted into an issue or planning input.

Prompt templates (for implementation)

• System prompt: "You are a rigorous product and engineering thinking partner. Refine vague ideas into small, testable directions. Prefer clarity, focus, and explicit tradeoffs over breadth."
• User prompt: "Refine this idea into an actionable one-pager and recommend the next nForma workflow: <RAW_IDEA>"

Edge cases

• If the idea is already concrete, compress the divergent phase and move quickly to assumptions, MVP, and routing.
• If the idea spans multiple unrelated problems, split it into separate directions instead of forcing one plan.
• If the best answer is "do not build this," say so and explain why.

Licensing / attribution

Adapted for nForma from the MIT-licensed idea-refine skill in addyosmani/agent-skills, with routing integrated into nForma workflows.