Prospect

/flow-next:prospect surfaces candidate ideas before there is a spec to capture.

Each candidate is scored against the repo’s actual state: recent files, open specs, .flow/memory/ entries, CHANGELOG.md, and STRATEGY.md. Nothing is invented from generic advice.

When to use it

When you have a focus area but no specific idea yet.

• “What should we do about authentication this quarter?”
• “Ideate inside src/billing/.”
• “Three improvements to onboarding.”

Prospect is upstream of /flow-next:capture (when you already know the shape) and upstream of /flow-next:plan (when the idea is solid enough to break down directly).

Focus hints

Pass nothing for open-ended ideation, or scope the search with hints:

Hint	Example
Concept	/flow-next:prospect authentication
Path	/flow-next:prospect path:src/billing
Constraint	/flow-next:prospect "no new dependencies"
Volume	/flow-next:prospect count:5

Hints can combine. The skill blends them with the grounding pass against the repo.

Promote to spec

Survivor candidates become specs via flowctl:

flowctl prospect promote <n>

Promoted specs land in .flow/specs/ ready for /flow-next:interview or /flow-next:plan.

flowchart LR
  Focus["Focus hint"] --> Ground["Ground in repo state"]
  Ground --> Rank["Rank candidates"]
  Rank --> Review["User reviews list"]
  Review -->|promote| Spec[".flow/specs/<id>.md"]
  Review -->|archive| Drop["Discard"]

Artifacts

Ideas live under .flow/prospects/ until promoted or archived. Default retention is 30 days; older candidates are pruned so the directory stays small enough to scan.

Next step

flowctl prospect promote <n>
/flow-next:interview <spec-id>