Design vs Testing · both proven

brainstorming vs test-driven-development

Both skills were run through Claude twice: once on a fixed brief without the skill, once with it. The briefs differ because each is written for the job the skill claims to do, so compare each skill against its own baseline, then decide which difference matters for your work. They are in different categories, so this is a choice of job, not a head-to-head on the same job.

brainstorming

You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, modifying behavior, or planning anything new, in software or out of it (a talk, a business, a renovation).

Category: Design
Source: obra/superpowers
License: MIT
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “A small bakery with one location wants more weekday morning customers. They have a loyal weekend crowd, an Instagram account with 2,000 followers, and no budget for paid ads. Work through this with me and produce the result as a single HTML page: the questions you would ask, the ideas you considered, the three you recommend with how to test each one in two weeks, and what you would measure.”
Skill commit: b739a8a

Without the skillWith brainstorming

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Without, runWith brainstorming, run3 independent runs per side, none selected by hand.

Download the with-skill page

test-driven-development

Use when implementing any feature or bugfix, before writing implementation code

Category: Testing
Source: obra/superpowers
License: MIT
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “Implement a function that parses a cron expression (the standard five fields) and returns the next run time after a given date, in TypeScript. Present the work as a single HTML page with two columns: the test file on the left and the implementation on the right, each in a code block, with a short note at the top on the order you did things in and anything you decided not to support.”
Skill commit: bb92a77

Without the skillWith test-driven-development

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Without, runWith test-driven-development, run3 independent runs per side, none selected by hand.

Download the with-skill page

We don’t pick a winner for you: the pages are the evidence. Both proofs can be repeated with the brief, model and commit shown above. See alternatives to brainstorming or alternatives to test-driven-development.