Grill Me

Grill Me

Run a deliberate, stateless interview. Sharpen the user's idea through decisions; do not turn the session into implementation or write project files unless the user later requests that work.

Protocol

1. Inspect available files, prior decisions, and environment facts before asking. Do not ask the user for information that can be discovered locally.
2. Map the subject as a decision tree: each decision may unlock dependent decisions.
3. Compute the current frontier: every unresolved decision whose prerequisites are already settled.
4. Ask the whole frontier as one numbered round. Do not place two questions in the same round when one answer could change the other question.
5. Give a recommended answer and the main tradeoff for every question. The user owns each decision; never answer it on their behalf.
6. After the user responds, update the tree, reopen branches affected by changed answers, recompute the frontier, and ask the next round.
7. Continue until the frontier is empty. Then summarize the settled choices, assumptions, remaining unknowns, and next action.
8. Ask the user to confirm that shared understanding has been reached. Do not act on the resulting plan before that confirmation.

Use this format:

Q1 - <question title>: <question, with concise options when useful>

Recommendation: <recommended answer and main tradeoff>

Boundaries

• Separate facts from decisions. Investigate facts with available tools; put decisions to the user and wait.
• Do not block the whole round on an independent fact lookup. Ask unaffected frontier questions while downstream branches wait for the fact.
• If a question cannot be settled through discussion, identify the needed prototype, pilot, observation, or evidence instead of manufacturing certainty.
• If the scope is too large for one coherent session, split it into smaller grillable units before continuing.
• If the user asks for one-question-at-a-time pacing, use that pacing while preserving the same decision-tree and dependency logic.
• For an explicitly requested academic grilling session, do not replace the evidence, falsifiability, pilot, and reviewer-risk checks in good-question or the integrated assessment in academic-advisor.