Ask To

Contract

• Input: problem or task defined by the skill body.
• Output: Markdown artifact or structured result with completion criteria met.
• Side effects: none (design/review/documentation only unless explicitly stated).
• Dependencies: none (self-contained unless linked to other skills).
• Stop condition: all process steps completed; artifact saved; criteria checked.
• Risk: low.
• Boundary: produces reasoning or documentation artifacts; does not modify external systems unless explicitly instructed.

Ask To

Use this skill to choose the next step when the route is unclear or the request is not already claimed.

Start by building a minimal fresh context pack and then route against declared capabilities instead of memory. If the request may affect work-item metadata or tracker state, run work-item-router first.

Contract

• Input: one user intent, the current repo state, and the available skills registry.
• Output: one recommended skill path, one rationale, and one fallback path only when the choice is genuinely ambiguous.
• Scope: recommend the next skill, not the implementation plan.
• Rule: if the answer is "insufficient context," say what is missing instead of guessing.
• Rule: the recommendation must be grounded in declared capabilities and side effects, not recall.
• Rule: do not draft the spec, issue, PR, or code here; only recommend the next skill path.

A flow is a path through the skills. Most paths run along one main flow, and two on-ramps merge onto it. Everything else is standalone, or a vocabulary layer that runs underneath.

The main flow: idea → ship

The route most work travels. You have an idea and want it built.

1. /grill-with-docs — sharpen the idea by interview. Start here when you have a codebase and want the result reflected in CONTEXT.md, ADRs, and adjacent durable docs. (No codebase? Use /grill or /grill-me — see Standalone. These run the same /grilling primitive; grill-with-docs is the one that leaves a paper trail.)

2. Branch — can you settle every question in conversation? If a question needs a runnable answer (state, business logic, a UI you have to see), detour through a prototype, bridged by /handoff in both directions (see Crossing sessions):

   • /handoff out, then open a fresh session against that file,
   • /prototype to answer the question with throwaway code,
   • /handoff back what you learned, and reference it from the original idea thread.

3. Branch — is this a multi-session build?

   • Yes → /to-spec (turn the thread into a spec using that skill's spec template), then /to-tickets to split it into tracer-bullet tickets using that skill's ticket template, each declaring its blocking edges and, on a real tracker, as subissues of the spec issue. On a local tracker that's one file per ticket under .scratch/<feature>/issues/, worked blockers-first by hand; on a real tracker the edges become native blocking links, so any ticket whose blockers are done can be grabbed — kick off /implement per ticket, clearing context between each one.
   • No → /implement right here, in the same context window.

   Either way, /implement builds each issue by driving /tdd internally — one red-green slice at a time — then follows the issue workflow in AGENTS.md. When the branch should ship, /publish-open-pr opens the PR, /review-pr reviews the PR, and then /ship-subissue finishes the merge, issue closure, and tracker sync once review is clean. If review finds problems, use /review-fix-loop to run /review-pr -> /plan-review-fixes -> /implement-review-fixes until Standards and Spec are clean or blocked. Reach for /tdd on its own when you just want to build a concrete behaviour test-first without a full spec, /review-pr when a GitHub PR needs a published review, and /code-review when you want a local branch or working diff reviewed against a fixed point without the PR repair workflow.

Context hygiene

Keep steps 1–3 in one unbroken context window — don't compact or clear until after /to-tickets — so the grilling, spec, and tickets all build on the same thinking. Each /implement then starts fresh, working from the ticket.

The limit on this is the smart zone: the window (~120k tokens on state-of-the-art models) within which the model still reasons sharply. If a session approaches it before /to-tickets, don't push on degraded — /handoff and continue in a fresh thread.

Completion criteria

• exactly one primary skill path is recommended
• the rationale distinguishes the chosen path from the nearest alternative
• any fallback path is actionable and named
• missing-context cases are explicit rather than implied

On-ramps

A starting situation that generates work, then merges onto the main flow.

• Bugs and requests piling up → /triage. It moves issues through triage roles and produces agent-ready issues, which /implement later picks up.

  Triage is only for issues you didn't create — bug reports, incoming feature requests, anything that arrives raw. Tickets that /to-tickets produced are already agent-ready, so don't triage them.

• Something's broken → /diagnosing-bugs. For the hard ones: the bug that resists a first glance, the intermittent flake, the regression that crept in between two known-good states. It refuses to theorise until it has a tight feedback loop — one command that already goes red on this bug — then fixes with a regression test. If the post-mortem shows there is no good seam to lock the bug down, route the design repair through /codebase-design before returning to /implement.

• A huge, foggy effort — a greenfield project or a huge feature build, too big for one session → /wayfinder, the most cognitively demanding flow here. When the way from here to the destination isn't visible yet, it charts a map of decision tickets on the issue tracker and resolves them one at a time — producing decisions, not deliverables — until the fog is pushed back and the way is clear. Where /grill-with-docs sharpens an idea you can hold in one session, wayfinder is for the idea you can't — and it's slower and denser, so save it for exactly that, never a well-scoped feature.

  When the map clears, it hands off, it doesn't build: merge onto the main flow at /to-spec, which collapses the map's linked decisions into a buildable plan, then /to-tickets and /implement as usual. Looping the map straight into /implement skips that collapse and throws the linked detail away — go straight to /implement only when the effort turned out genuinely small.

Codebase health

Not feature work — upkeep.

• /codebase-design — run when a module's interface, seam, testability, or agent navigability is the actual problem. It surfaces deepening opportunities; picking one generates an idea you can take into the main flow at /grill-with-docs.

Vocabulary underneath

Two model-invoked references that run beneath the other skills — each the single source of truth for its vocabulary. Reach for them directly when the words, not the process, are the problem; or let the skills above pull them in.

• /domain-modeling — sharpen the project's domain language: challenge a fuzzy term, resolve an overloaded word, and record a hard-to-reverse decision as an ADR. It's the active discipline /grill-with-docs drives to keep CONTEXT.md a clean project glossary.
• /codebase-design — the deep-module vocabulary (module, interface, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality) for designing a module's shape: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface at a clean seam. /tdd, /api-design, /frontend-design, and the stack skills can all speak it.

Crossing sessions

• /handoff — when a thread is full or you need to branch off (e.g. into a /prototype session), this compacts the conversation into a markdown file. You don't continue in place — you open a new session and reference that file to carry the context across. It's the bridge between context windows, in either direction. Use it when you want a fresh session but need the current conversation preserved.
• /compact (built-in) — stay in the same conversation, letting the earlier turns be summarized. Use it at intentional breaks between phases, when you don't mind losing the verbatim history. Don't compact mid-phase — the agent can lose its way. /handoff forks; /compact continues.

Standalone

Off the main flow entirely.

• /grill / /grill-me — the same relentless interview as /grill-with-docs, but for when you have no codebase or do not want docs updated. Stateless: it saves nothing locally, builds no CONTEXT.md. Reach for it to sharpen any plan or design that doesn't live in a repo.
• /prototype — a small, throwaway program that answers one design question: does this state model feel right, or what should this UI look like. Throwaway from day one — keep the answer, delete the code. It's the detour in step 2 of the main flow, but reach for it any time a design question is hard to settle on paper.
• /research — delegate reading legwork to a background agent: it investigates a question against primary sources, then leaves a cited Markdown file in the repo. Keep working while it reads. The file it produces is something to take into the main flow at /grill-with-docs — research feeds the thinking, it doesn't replace it.
• /plan-review-fixes — turn dirty /code-review findings into a durable GitHub PR comment headed Review Fix Plan. Use it alone when you want a human-readable correction plan before anyone edits code.
• /implement-review-fixes — read the latest Review Fix Plan PR comment, apply the scoped corrections through /implement, validate locally, and leave an implementation note. Use it alone when the plan already exists.
• /review-fix-loop — orchestrate the PR review repair cycle: /review-pr, plan, implement, then review again until clean or blocked. Use it when a PR should be driven to a clean review before a ship step.
• /writing-great-skills — reference for writing and editing skills well.

Precondition

/setup-quirk-skills — run before your first engineering flow to configure the issue tracker, triage labels, and doc layout the other skills assume. Custom issue trackers also work.