feat: clean-room synthesis — brainstorm, memorize, root-cause-trace, five-whys

2026-04-19T19:40:34+00:00

Four new skills synthesized from patterns in NeoLabHQ/context-engineering-kit (GPL-3.0). Clean-room approach: extracted rubrics from the originals (triggers, phases, hard cases, footguns, novel patterns), then wrote from scratch without referencing their prose. Ideas and methods aren't copyrightable; wording is. These skills are independent works. brainstorm Turn a vague idea into a validated design doc. Three phases: one-question-at-a-time dialogue, six-approach exploration (three conventional + three diverse tail samples for anti-convergence), chunked design presentation with per-chunk validation. Output: docs/design/.md. Hands off to arch-decide / arch-design / implementation. memorize Curate session insights into project CLAUDE.md under a dedicated "## Memorized Insights" section. Grow-and- refine per ACE (arXiv:2510.04618): atomic, evidence- backed, non-redundant bullets. Args: --dry-run, --max, --target, --section, --source. Flags cross-project patterns for promotion to ~/code/rulesets/claude-rules/. Clearly delineates from auto-memory (private) and formal rules (stable policy). root-cause-trace Backward-walk technique for debugging. Observe symptom → identify immediate cause → walk up the call chain → find original trigger → fix at source + defense-in- depth at each intermediate layer. Instrumentation guidance (stack capture before the dangerous op, not after; stderr not framework logger in tests); test- pollution bisection. Companion to /debug — /debug is broader; this is specifically the backward walk. five-whys Iterative why-questioning from symptom to process/ decision root cause. Five is a convention, not a quota — stop when a cause, if eliminated, would prevent every symptom in the chain. Handles branching (multiple contributing causes). Validates chains by walking back from root to symptom. Refuses to terminate at "human error" or "not enough budget" — those have deeper whys. Companion to root-cause-trace (that's for code execution; this is for process). Makefile SKILLS extended. make install symlinks all four into ~/.claude/skills/ alongside existing skills. Lint clean.

rulesets/brainstorm, branch main

feat: clean-room synthesis — brainstorm, memorize, root-cause-trace, five-whys