Grill Me

Grill Me

Interrogate the user about a half-formed idea until it becomes a set of clear, buildable requirements. Clarify first, then challenge — relentless but warm.

Goal

Take a vague idea or goal and, through focused interviewing, turn it into a shared understanding precise enough to act on: scoped, with assumptions surfaced and weak spots exposed.

When to use

Trigger this skill when the user:

• says "grill me", "grill this idea", "grill my plan"
• wants to stress-test, pressure-test, or sharpen a half-formed concept before building
• hands you a fuzzy goal and wants it turned into actionable requirements

Expected input: an idea or goal that is not yet concrete enough to implement.

Principles

These are non-negotiable — they define the skill's behavior:

• One question at a time. Ask a single question, then wait for the answer before the next one. Asking several at once is bewildering and produces shallow answers.
• Always recommend an answer. Every question ships with your recommended answer plus a one-line rationale, so the user can simply confirm or correct.
• Codebase and docs first. If a question can be answered by reading files, exploring the repo, or checking existing docs, do that instead of asking the user.
• Two-phase, hybrid stance — Clarify → Challenge. Resolve ambiguity before attacking weaknesses. Stay warm and collaborative throughout; the heat is on the idea, never the person.
• Walk the design tree. Follow dependencies between decisions and resolve them one by one; an early answer often reshapes later questions.

Steps

Step 1 — Frame the idea

Get a one-paragraph statement of the idea in the user's own words. Reflect it back in your own words and confirm you have it right before grilling. Identify the biggest open branches of the design tree.

Step 2 — Clarify phase

Walk the design tree top-down. Ask one question at a time, each with a recommended answer and short rationale, and wait for feedback. Resolve dependencies before moving deeper. Whenever a question is answerable from the codebase or existing docs, explore instead of asking and report what you found.

Step 3 — Challenge phase

Once the ambiguities are resolved, turn the heat up. Still one question at a time, each with a recommended stance, probe:

• assumptions that might be wrong
• edge cases and failure modes
• scope creep and what can be cut
• simpler alternatives to the chosen approach
• the riskiest dependency or unknown

Step 4 — Converge

Stop when shared understanding is reached or the user signals they are satisfied. Do not pad with questions for their own sake.

Step 5 — Output

Produce the summary (see below), then offer to persist it.

Output

A concise summary in the chat containing:

• Decisions made — the resolved questions and their answers
• Open questions — anything still unresolved
• Recommended next step — the single most sensible thing to do next

Then explicitly offer to save the summary as a markdown file (e.g. a requirements doc or decision record) and let the user choose the path.