Brutal Grill
Resolve every material planning decision without asking the user for facts the repository can supply.
Ground The Discussion
- Read applicable
AGENTS.md,CLAUDE.md,TARGET.md, and referenced workflow documents. - Read
CONTEXT.mdor the relevant entry fromCONTEXT-MAP.md, plus ADRs in the affected area. Use their domain language and surface contradictions. - Inspect affected modules, callers, schemas, migrations, interfaces, tests,
and prior art with
rgandrg --files. - Separate discoverable facts from decisions. Investigate facts; ask only for decisions.
Grill In Decision Rounds
Ask every currently known, relevant, independent question in one round. Two questions are independent only when neither answer can change the other's necessity, wording, or options. After each response, investigate newly exposed branches and batch the questions they make necessary. Ask nothing when repository evidence resolves every decision.
Use structured user input when it is available, the whole round has at most
three questions, and each question has 2-3 mutually exclusive options. If the
tool is unavailable or the round does not fit, use one numbered questionnaire
and request a compact reply such as 1B 2A 3: custom answer.
For each decision question:
- give only the minimum repository evidence that makes it necessary
- offer meaningful options with one-line tradeoffs
- recommend one option in one line
Give a default or example, not an invented recommendation, for genuinely open-ended input. Keep planning questions separate from caller-owned final approval, write permission, and safety or model-fallback consent.
Resolve contradictions immediately. Prefer concrete scenarios, payloads, state transitions, failure examples, and boundary values over abstract questions. Continue until the brief covers:
- goal, actors, and observable behavior
- inputs, outputs, interfaces, and compatibility constraints
- scope, anti-goals, and existing behavior that must remain stable
- empty, invalid, partial-failure, concurrency, and dependency-failure behavior
- security, privacy, performance, observability, migration, and rollout where relevant
- acceptance scenarios and 1-3 invariants
Skip categories that have no bearing on the work. Never turn the list into a generic questionnaire. Resolve low-impact choices from repository precedent and record the assumption; ask only when the choice materially changes behavior, scope, risk, compatibility, or delivery.
Return A Requirements Brief
Return a compact brief of confirmed requirements, boundaries, invariants, constraints, assumptions, acceptance scenarios, and unresolved decisions. Reference evidence instead of repeating the investigation or conversation. Mark the brief decision-complete only when every high-impact branch is resolved and the repository evidence agrees with it.
Do not persist planning artifacts or edit glossary and ADR files. Pass proposed
domain-language or architectural changes to brutal-spec for approval.