Grill Me Auto

Grill Me Auto

Batch-mode fork of grill-me: same relentless stress test, but every question is written into one markdown grill document so the user can read, collapse/expand, and answer in one shot.

Use this skill for /grill-me-auto, /Grill Me Auto, /grill me auto, "auto grill", or requests for all grill questions at once. If the user wants a live one-question-at-a-time interview, redirect to /grill-me. If they want engineering-only grilling against CONTEXT.md / ADRs, redirect to /domain-grill.

Step 0 — choose depth first

If the invocation includes a recognized depth (see the table in REFERENCE.md for accepted values and aliases), echo it in one line and proceed. Otherwise, ask exactly this and stop:

Grill depth? (default: deep)

• deep — every branch, edge case, contradiction, code/doc cross-check, and invented boundary scenario. Typically 20–40+ questions.
• standard — critical assumptions plus main edge cases and obvious cross-checks. Typically 15–25 questions.
• quick — only highest-leverage deal-breakers and dead-on-arrival risks. Typically 5–10 questions.

Reply with deep / standard / quick (or hit return for deep). Pre-select next time with /grill-me-auto deep|standard|quick.

Step 1 — gather context silently

Inspect the prompt, linked artifacts, touched files, repo instructions, CONTEXT.md, ADRs, docs, and recent commits before writing questions. If a fact can be found by exploring the environment (filesystem, tools, etc.), look it up rather than asking the user. The decisions, though, are the user's — put each one in the grill document and wait for their answer. Mention blockers only if needed.

Step 2 — write the grill document

Resolve the project root with git rev-parse --show-toplevel, falling back to an ancestor with .git / .claude, then pwd. Create the document atomically (.tmp then rename) at the path defined in REFERENCE.md § File contract. Create .grills/ if missing; if it is not gitignored, append /.grills/ to .gitignore and stage that one-line change (do not commit).

Follow REFERENCE.md for every format contract — file path, frontmatter, question block, answer key, reply parsing. templates/grill-doc.template.md is the only filled example; do not inline another one here or in README.md.

Precision pass — apply before writing

Before serializing the document to disk, internally apply precision-mode to every authored string: question text, Why it matters lines, option labels, recommendation reasons, and alt reasons. The grill doc is the only deliverable, so density of the prose inside it is the deliverable.

Implicit invocation rules:

• If precision-mode is listed in the environment's available skills, invoke it before drafting question prose; if not, apply the same rules inline from memory (lead with the answer, no filler, no echo, no trailing summary, fragments over sentences when unambiguous, quantify don't qualify, prefer structure over prose).
• Apply precision only to the authored content of questions, options, recommendations, and alt reasons. Do not strip the literal markdown scaffolding the format contract requires: <details> / <summary> tags, the **Why it matters:** / **Options:** / **Recommendation:** / **Alt:** labels, the ## Questions TOC heading, the ## Answer key heading, frontmatter keys, or the three reply-path code blocks. Those are contract, not prose.
• Caps that override the precision instinct to compress further: Why it matters stays ≤1 sentence (≤20 words); option labels stay ≤15 words; recommendation and alt reasons stay ≤25 words. If a reason genuinely needs more, split into two sentences — do not drop the why to hit the cap.
• Preserve correctness and critical caveats. Precision must not strip a security warning, breaking-change flag, data-loss risk, or a specific code/ADR reference that gives the recommendation its grip.
• Never let precision delete the alt recommendation to "lead with the answer". The dual recommendation + alt structure is contract.

Briefly mention in the hand-off message (Step 3) that the doc was written under precision mode, so the user knows scannability is intentional and reasons are not truncated by accident.

Step 3 — hand off and stop

After writing the file, reply only with:

Grill written to .grills/<filename> — questions at depth , written under precision mode (terse on purpose; reasons capped, not truncated). Open it in a markdown previewer, then paste one of: accept all my recommendations, accept all my alt recommendations, or the filled answer-key block. I'll apply your answers in one pass when you reply.

Do not summarize the questions in chat. The document is the deliverable.

Step 4 — when the user replies

Parse the shortcut or answer-key block in one pass. If malformed, ask one targeted fix-up question, not a new grill.

After parsing:

1. Update the grill document frontmatter to status: answered, append answered_at, and add ## Resolved answers at the bottom.
2. Summarize the resolved plan in ≤10 bullets, flagging any answer that changed direction from the original prompt with (changed:).
3. Ask before starting the next step; do not implement automatically.

Forked from grill-me, itself a fork of Matt Pocock's grill-me, whose interview core now lives in his grilling skill. Matt's relentless-interview core remains, re-synced via grill-me; this fork adds batch document delivery.