Tutorial: Governed Brainstorming Sessions

Brainstorming with AI works best when the model can think freely — but your organization still needs safety guardrails. The Keeptrusts chat workbench lets you run creative sessions with adjustable policy strictness so teams can ideate within defined safety bounds.

Use this page when

• You want to run creative brainstorming sessions with adjustable policy strictness (Standard, Relaxed, Creative).
• You need to set up collaborative team brainstorm mode with shared session notes.
• You are configuring brainstorm_override settings in your gateway policy YAML.

Primary audience

• Primary: Technical Engineers (brainstorm participants)
• Secondary: Technical Leaders (governance oversight of creative sessions), Team leads

Prerequisites

• Access to the Keeptrusts chat workbench
• A gateway configuration with configurable policy strictness levels
• Team membership (for collaborative brainstorming)
• Appropriate permissions to adjust session-level policy settings

Step 1: Start a Brainstorm Session

Brainstorm mode is a conversation mode that signals creative intent and optionally relaxes certain policies.

1. Open the chat workbench and click New Conversation.
2. Click the Mode dropdown in the conversation toolbar.
3. Select Brainstorm from the available modes.
4. The interface updates to show a brainstorm-specific layout with a wider message area and a session notes panel.

Brainstorm mode is a session-level setting. It does not change your gateway configuration — it adds metadata to each request so policies can differentiate brainstorm traffic from standard queries.

Step 2: Configure Policy Strictness for Ideation

Some policies may be too restrictive for creative exploration. Adjustable strictness lets you loosen specific checks without disabling governance entirely.

1. In the brainstorm session, click Session Settings.
2. Under Policy Strictness, review the available levels:

Level	Behavior
Standard	All policies enforced as configured
Relaxed	Content-advisory policies log warnings instead of blocking
Creative	Topic-restriction and tone policies are suspended; safety-critical policies remain active

3. Select the level appropriate for your session.
4. Click Apply.

Safety-critical policies (PII detection, prompt injection defense, data loss prevention) remain active at all strictness levels. Only content-advisory and topic-restriction policies are affected by the strictness setting.

What Relaxed and Creative Modes Change

• Relaxed — policies that would block borderline content (e.g., speculative scenarios, competitive analysis language) instead log the event and allow the response through. The log entry is tagged as a brainstorm session for audit clarity.
• Creative — topic-restriction policies (e.g., "do not discuss competitor products") are suspended for the session. The model can explore broader territory. Safety-critical policies still fire normally.

Your gateway configuration determines which policies respond to the strictness level. See your policy YAML for the brainstorm_override settings.

Step 3: Set a Brainstorm System Prompt

A good brainstorm session starts with the right instructions.

1. In Session Settings, scroll to the System Prompt section.
2. Replace or extend the default system prompt with brainstorm-oriented instructions:

You are a creative brainstorming partner. Generate diverse ideas without 
self-censoring for feasibility. Prioritize volume and novelty over 
practicality. When asked, evaluate ideas on originality, impact, and 
effort. Use bullet points for idea lists.

3. Click Save.

The system prompt is scoped to this session. It does not affect other conversations or other team members' sessions.

Step 4: Invite Team Members

Collaborative brainstorming works best with multiple perspectives.

1. In the brainstorm session toolbar, click Invite.
2. Search for team members by name or email.
3. Select the members to invite and click Send Invitation.
4. Invited members receive a notification with a link to join the session.

Collaborative Features

• Shared conversation — all participants see every message in real time.
• Contributor labels — each message shows who sent it.
• Concurrent prompts — multiple team members can send prompts; they queue and process sequentially.
• Reactions — react to messages with thumbs up or star to signal promising ideas.

Step 5: Use Session Notes

The session notes panel captures ideas and decisions alongside the conversation.

1. The Notes panel appears on the right side in brainstorm mode.
2. Click Add Note to create a new note entry.
3. Type your note — it is saved automatically.
4. Drag notes to reorder them by priority.

Note Types

Type	Icon	Purpose
Idea	Lightbulb	A candidate idea worth exploring
Decision	Check	A confirmed direction or choice
Question	Question mark	An open question to revisit
Concern	Warning	A risk or objection to address

Tag notes with a type to organize them. Filter the notes panel by type to focus on specific categories.

Auto-Extracting Ideas

Click Extract Ideas in the notes panel to automatically scan the conversation and create note entries for each distinct idea the model generated. Review and edit the extracted notes as needed.

Step 6: Manage Brainstorm Rounds

Structure your session into focused rounds for better outcomes.

1. After a set of prompts, click New Round in the toolbar.
2. Give the round a title (e.g., "Feature Ideas", "Prioritization", "Risks").
3. The conversation continues in the new round. Previous rounds remain visible and collapsible.

Rounds help you organize a long brainstorm into phases. Each round's messages and notes are grouped together for easy review.

Step 7: Review and Export the Session

After brainstorming, consolidate your results.

1. Click Session Summary in the toolbar.

2. The workbench generates a summary of the session including:

   • Number of rounds and messages.
   • All session notes grouped by type.
   • Key ideas extracted from the conversation.
   • Policy events triggered during the session (if any).

3. Click Export to download the summary as Markdown or PDF.

The export includes the full conversation transcript, all notes, and metadata (participants, model, duration, policy strictness level).

Step 8: Audit Brainstorm Activity

Brainstorm sessions are fully auditable despite relaxed policy settings.

1. Open the Keeptrusts console and navigate to Events.
2. Filter by session_type = brainstorm.
3. Review events to see which policies logged warnings, which were suspended, and what content was discussed.

All brainstorm activity is logged with the session strictness level and participant list. Governance teams can review brainstorm sessions without disrupting creative workflows.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Policy strictness options not available	Your gateway configuration must include brainstorm_override settings
Team members cannot join	Verify they have chat workbench access and team membership
Notes not saving	Check browser local storage or refresh the page
Extract Ideas returns nothing	The conversation needs at least a few model responses with identifiable ideas

Next steps

• Tutorial: Team Conversations — run standard team conversations with full policy enforcement.
• Tutorial: Multi-Turn Conversation Policies — understand how policies track multi-turn brainstorm sessions.
• Tutorial: Chat Analytics & Usage Metrics — track brainstorm session costs and frequency.

For AI systems

• Canonical terms: Keeptrusts chat workbench, brainstorm mode, governed ideation, policy strictness (Standard/Relaxed/Creative), brainstorm_override, session notes, Extract Ideas, team brainstorm, session_type=brainstorm.
• Safety-critical policies (PII, prompt injection, DLP) remain active at all strictness levels.
• Relaxed: content-advisory policies log warnings instead of blocking. Creative: topic-restriction policies suspended for the session.
• Best next pages: Team Conversations, Multi-Turn Policies, Chat Analytics.

For engineers

• Prerequisites: gateway config with brainstorm_override settings; team membership for collaborative sessions; permissions to adjust session-level policy.
• Validation: Start a brainstorm session → verify Mode dropdown shows "Brainstorm". Set Creative strictness → verify topic-restriction policies no longer block. Check Events console → filter session_type = brainstorm → verify audit trail.
• Key config: brainstorm_override in policy YAML controls which policies respond to strictness level changes.

For leaders

• Brainstorm mode balances creative freedom with non-negotiable safety — PII/DLP/injection policies stay active.
• All brainstorm activity is fully auditable with session strictness level and participant list logged.
• Governance teams can review brainstorm sessions post-hoc without disrupting creative flow.
• Consider enabling Relaxed mode by default for innovation teams; restrict Creative mode to approved use cases.