Journey Idea

Journey: Idea brainstorm

Stage 1 of the guided journey. Turn a vague idea into a written brief with capability tags.

When to use

• Dispatched by journey when current_stage: idea.
• Directly via /butterbase-skills:idea.

Inputs

None required. Optionally reads any existing 01-idea.md to resume.

Procedure — questioning discipline

Follow the cross-cutting rules from the spec:

• One question at a time. Never batch.
• Multiple-choice preferred, with 2–4 concrete options.
• Concrete, not abstract.
• Recommend when a Butterbase primitive is obvious.
• Tag inline. When a feature surfaces, append the capability tag immediately (→ manage_schema, → deploy_function, → manage_storage, → manage_oauth, → manage_rag_content, → manage_realtime, → manage_durable_objects, → manage_ai, → create_agent).
• Write as you go. After each answered question, append the decision to 01-idea.md so progress survives a crash.

Walk through these questions in order. Do not skip — but adapt the wording.

• "In one sentence, what is the painful thing your user does today that this replaces?"
• "Who is the first user? ① solo creator ② small team ③ end customers of a business ④ Other"
• "What is the first action they take in the app?"
• "If we could ship only ONE screen, which one?"
• "Do two different users see different data when they log in? (yes → user-scoped data → manage_rls; no → shared → simpler)"
• "Are there files/images involved? (yes → manage_storage; no → skip)"
• "Does anything happen on a schedule or in response to an external event? (yes → deploy_function cron/webhook; no → skip)"
• "Is there a knowledge base / search-over-documents feature? (yes → manage_rag_content; no → skip)"
• "Does the UI need live updates or presence? (yes → manage_realtime; no → skip)"

10. "Any chat rooms / multiplayer / per-user-actor state? (yes → manage_durable_objects; no → skip)"

11. "Any LLM features (chat, embeddings, summarisation)? (yes → manage_ai; no → skip)"

12. "Any multi-step LLM+tool workflows the user triggers (e.g. 'summarise my orders', 'auto-tag a doc', 'research and reply')? (yes → create_agent; no → skip)". If yes, also ask: "Will the agent need external MCP servers (e.g. GitHub, Slack, custom MCP)?" and "Visibility: ① only the developer ② any logged-in user ③ unauthenticated public — note: public + write tools requires explicit safety acknowledgement."

13. "Are you planning to publish this app as a public template others can clone? (yes / unlisted-public / no)". Set publish_as_template: <yes|unlisted|no> in 00-state.md front-matter. Public templates require a README with clone instructions and butterbase repo push to sync the source tree — flag this so plan and the publish stage know to plan for it.

If hackathon_mode: true in 00-state.md: after question 4, also ask:

• "Hackathon deadline (ISO date/time)?" — write to 00-state.md front-matter.
• After each subsequent feature ask "Can this ship in time, or move to a 'post-hackathon' section?"

01-idea.md format

# Idea

**One-liner:** <user's answer to Q1>

**First user:** <Q2>
**First action:** <Q3>
**One screen:** <Q4>

## Must-haves
- <feature> → <capability tag>
- ...

## Post-hackathon (nice-to-have)
- ...

## Capability map
| Capability | Used? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| manage_schema | yes | core data model |
| manage_rls | yes | user-scoped data |
| manage_oauth | yes | Google sign-in |
| manage_storage | no | no files |
| deploy_function | yes | daily-digest cron |
| manage_ai | no | |
| manage_rag_content | no | |
| manage_realtime | no | |
| manage_durable_objects | no | |
| create_agent | no | |
| publish_as_template | no | set true if user plans to share this app publicly |

Toolchain note

At the end of the idea write-up, also note in one line that the build will use:

• @butterbase/sdk for any frontend / Node app code
• @butterbase/cli for the local dev loop (scaffolding, logs, key generation)
• The MCP tools (this plugin) for orchestrating provisioning, deployments, integrations

This sets expectations before plan makes specific package choices.

Outputs

• Writes docs/butterbase/01-idea.md.
• Ticks - [x] idea and bumps current_stage: plan, last_updated in 00-state.md.

Anti-patterns

• ❌ "Tell me more about your app." Use the concrete questions above.
• ❌ Asking 3 questions at once.
• ❌ Accepting "all of the above" in hackathon mode — force prioritisation.
• ❌ Moving on before writing 01-idea.md to disk.