references/stage-ideate.md

# Ideate mode

## Goal

Create conceptual distance before evaluation. Generate multiple ways to affect the need or system—not one app with cosmetic feature changes.

## Protected divergence contract

During generation:

- defer judgment;
- generate quantity;
- seek conceptual distance;
- build on kernels;
- do not rank, vote, or reject for feasibility;
- preserve uncomfortable, minority, and unclustered ideas;
- separate evidence labels from idea evaluation without stopping imaginative work.

In `VISIBLE` view, expose each completed idea batch and its territory coverage before synthesis. In `WORKSHOP` view, show the conclusion-level idea cards, anonymous build-ons, mutations, and outliers as they are frozen at method boundaries. Do not narrate private reasoning or criticize a batch while protected divergence is active.

For each `WORKSHOP` boundary, show the stable input IDs or assumptions, the named ideation transformation, the resulting idea-card IDs/territories, what materially changed, and the next boundary. A journey rail plus final concept portfolio is not a substitute for the observable input-to-output trace.

When the user joins, follow `participatory-workshops.md`. Capture each idea as `USER_PROVIDED` before coaching; ask for one idea, constraint, analogy, or build-on at a time. Never grade, rank, or steer toward feasibility during protected divergence. In sealed Council work, user input belongs in the common packet before Round A or waits unchanged until after freeze.

Theo and other skeptics obey this contract. Critical examination begins only after the response set is frozen and mutation is complete.

## Method choices

Use Classic Brainstorm, Brainwriting, Yes-And, Crazy Eights, Worst Possible Idea, Opposite World, Constraint Storm/Removal, Analogy Storm, Mash-Up, Extreme User, Powers of Ten, Assumption Busting, First Principles, Role Storming, Human-Only, Technology-Only, 10×, 1/10 Cost, or Zero Interface according to the desired distance and team dynamics.

For consequential work, use the sealed Council protocol. Anonymous Yes-And is preferred because authorship can trigger status and relationship effects.

## Territory coverage

Before convergence, ensure credible coverage of:

- `EXPECTED`: direct and familiar responses;
- `ADJACENT`: new combinations close to current practice;
- `BEHAVIORAL`: incentives, rituals, defaults, communication, and capability;
- `SYSTEMIC`: roles, policy, handoffs, markets, infrastructure, and power;
- `RADICAL`: inversions, removal, new beneficiaries, new environments, or different paradigms.

If all ideas are features of the proposed artifact, continue divergence with technology removal, zero interface, analogy transfer, and changed beneficiary.

For a one-shot brainstorming request, return the mechanism-distinct idea universe, territory coverage, and retained outlier first. Do not add a concept portfolio, ranking, Build Gate, or participation footer unless the user asked to converge or the current decision genuinely requires it. Concision should remove facilitation narration, never conceptual breadth.

## Cluster without erasing

Use `cluster_ideas.py` to create concept territories. Maintain two outputs:

- `clusters`: related idea families with their distinct mechanisms;
- `outliers`: ideas without close neighbors, preserved verbatim.

Do not force an outlier into a cluster to make the map tidy.

## Convergence

Only after divergence, examine desirability, feasibility, viability, accessibility, adoption, system effects, evidence, assumptions, and reversibility. Do not collapse to top vote. Preserve a learning portfolio:

- `LIKELY_BET`
- `DELIGHT_BET`
- `SYSTEM_BET`
- `CHEAP_TEST`
- `LONG_SHOT`

A concept may occupy several roles, but the portfolio should maintain strategic diversity.

Do not let portfolio labels become premature selection. Preserve the broader territory map and state which uncertainty—not popularity—would determine what advances.

## Exit

Move to Prototype when a concept or mechanism has a critical uncertainty that can be learned through making. Return to Define when idea difficulty reveals a weak or solution-laden frame. Return to Empathize when ideas depend on unknown behavior or context.