ideways

AI selects Reduce category

🎴 "2 hours, not 2 weeks. What's different?"

• If you only had 2 hours to halve the test runtime, what would you do differently than your current "proper" approach?
• What shortcuts are you avoiding because they feel too hacky—but would actually solve 80% of the problem?
• What if you optimized only the slowest 3 tests and ignored everything else?
• Are you solving "test suite performance" or solving "I don't want to wait 10 minutes"? Those might have different solutions.
• What assumption about "the right way" to test is making this take weeks instead of hours?

AI selects Pause category

🎴 "What's so obvious you forgot it exists?"

• When did you last check the actual error message instead of debugging based on your theory?
• Are you absolutely certain the code you're looking at is the code that's running?
• What if the bug is in the setup/teardown, not in the actual test?
• Have you restarted the dev server? (Yes, really.)
• What obvious thing would you tell a junior developer to check first—have you checked it?

AI selects Reframe category

🎴 "What are you pretending not to know?"

• You know exactly which 3 tables are causing 90% of the pain—what are they?
• What if "we can't afford a migration" is code for "we're afraid of breaking things"?
• Who actually uses the messy parts of the schema? Is it everyone or just legacy code no one wants to touch?
• What would happen if you just... fixed one column this week? Do you actually need permission?
• Are you pretending not to know that small, incremental changes are safer than waiting for the perfect moment?

AI selects Reduce category

🎴 "Which problem are you avoiding by solving this one?"

• Are these seven parameters actually seven different responsibilities that shouldn't live in one function?
• What design decision are you avoiding by cramming everything into this single function signature?
• If you had to split this into two functions right now, where would the natural break be? Why haven't you made that split?
• What if the real problem isn't "too many parameters" but "function is solving too many problems"?
• Are you avoiding creating a new abstraction because it feels like overkill—but seven parameters is already overkill?

AI selects Pause category

🎴 "Step back. What pattern do you see?"

• Every time you "improve" this code, what gets worse? Is there a pattern to what you're sacrificing?
• Are you refactoring toward simplicity or toward what "good code" is supposed to look like?
• If you showed your git diff to someone else, would they see improvement or just... change?
• What assumption about the code's structure keeps leading you down these complex paths?
• Have you been refactoring for more than 30 minutes? What would starting over from the original teach you?

AI selects Reframe category

🎴 "What if simple feels broken?"

• What if the code that's "hard to test" is actually just poorly designed, and the simple fix is to redesign it?
• Does mocking everything feel necessary because your dependencies are tightly coupled in ways they shouldn't be?
• If you could rewrite this code to be trivially testable, what would change? Why does that feel wrong?
• Are you choosing mocks over redesign because mocks feel like "testing work" and redesign feels like "admitting the code was bad"?
• What if a test that requires no mocks is better than a thoroughly mocked test, even if it means changing the code?

AI selects Disrupt category

🎴 "What are you building: a prison, a playground, or a cathedral?"

• Is this character trapped by the plot (prison), exploring possibilities (playground), or building something meaningful (cathedral)?
• What if your protagonist sees the story world completely differently than you do?
• Are you writing the character you find interesting, or the character the plot requires?
• If your protagonist could change one rule of your story, what would they break?
• Prison, playground, or cathedral—which one would make this character come alive?

AI selects Embody category

🎴 "Excitement or obligation?"

• When you think about each destination, do you feel a spark of excitement or a sense of "I should want to go there"?
• Whose vacation are you planning—yours, or the one you think you're supposed to want?
• What destination would you pick if no one ever asked you about it afterward?
• Are you overwhelmed by options or by the fear of making the "wrong" choice?
• What if you picked the place that feels easiest right now instead of the most impressive?

AI selects Reframe category

🎴 "What lie are you telling yourself?"

• Are you telling yourself "I want to learn Spanish" when you actually just want to feel capable of learning Spanish?
• What if the lie is that you need to be consistent? What if you just need to enjoy it?
• Are you pretending that THIS time will be different without changing anything about your approach?
• What if you don't actually want to learn Spanish—you want what you think Spanish will give you?
• What's the truth about why you quit each time that you're not admitting?

AI selects Reframe category

🎴 "Who is this really for?"

• Are you writing for the hiring manager or for the voice in your head that says "cover letters should sound like this"?
• If you were writing to a specific person you actually know, how would this letter change?
• What if "professional" is the problem, not the solution—what would you say if you didn't have to sound professional?
• Are you trying to show them who you are, or trying to become who you think they want?
• If this cover letter is for everyone, is it actually for anyone?

AI selects Reframe category

🎴 "Stop. Technical problem or avoided conversation?"

• Is this really an email problem, or are you using email to avoid a conversation you should be having face-to-face?
• What would you say if you had to say it out loud in the same room as this person?
• Are you mad at them for what they did, or mad at yourself for not speaking up earlier?
• If you could rewrite this email with zero passive-aggression, would you still need to send it?
• What's the conversation you're avoiding by trying to get the email tone "just right"?

AI selects Reduce category

🎴 "Delete half. Which half?"

• If you could only keep half of this paper, which half contains the actual insight versus the scaffolding?
• What if you deleted everything that sounds like a research paper and kept only what you'd explain to a colleague at lunch?
• Which sections exist because they're required, and which exist because they're interesting?
• If you had to cut this paper to half its length in the next hour, what would you delete first? Why aren't you deleting that now?
• What would remain if you removed every sentence that's there to sound smart rather than to communicate clearly?

AI selects Expand category

🎴 "What's missing?"

• You have data—but where's the moment when someone says "oh, I get it now"?
• What's the one story, example, or image that would make someone remember this after they leave the room?
• Are you presenting information or are you trying to change minds? What's missing for the latter?
• If someone left early, what's the one thing you'd run after them to tell them? Is that in your presentation?
• Data shows what's true—but what's missing that shows why it matters to *them*?

AI selects Disrupt category

🎴 "What if the mistake is the move?"

• What if the thing you're afraid to include—the risk, the uncertainty, the unconventional approach—is exactly what makes this memorable?
• Are you hiding the weird part of your proposal to sound safe, when the weird part is why it might actually work?
• What would you write if being "perfectly polished" is what makes proposals forgettable?
• If you admitted the thing that could go wrong, would that make the proposal weaker or more honest and compelling?
• What if standing out means showing the rough edges instead of sanding them all away?