grill-me
Phase 1 — Grill
Interview me to pin down this plan, walking the design tree and settling upstream decisions before the ones that depend on them, so we never reopen a closed branch.
Only ask load-bearing questions. Before asking anything, run it through this three-part test — a question earns a slot only if all three hold:
- The answer changes what gets built downstream (if every answer leads to the same build, drop it).
- The codebase can't answer it (if it can, go read the codebase instead of asking).
- There's no obvious default (if there is, state the default in one line and move on — don't ask).
Relentless means thorough on what matters, not exhaustive on everything. If a whole round of candidate questions fails the test, the grilling is done — go write the decision log.
Never repeat yourself. Maintain a running decision log, one line per settled decision: #N <decision>: <answer> (implies: <what this forecloses or forces>). Before asking, scan the log: skip anything that restates a settled branch, is already implied by a prior choice, or is a second phrasing of the same decision. When in doubt, infer from what I've said rather than re-asking.
Batch related decisions. When several discrete decisions sit at the same level and don't depend on each other, ask them together in one AskUserQuestion call (up to 4) rather than drip-feeding near-duplicates. Reserve one-at-a-time for genuine dependencies, where my answer steers the next question.
For each question give your recommended answer and a one-line why. For discrete options use AskUserQuestion with the recommendation first, labeled "(Recommended)"; use plain text for open-ended "why" / "what-if" probing.
Be terse — no preamble, no recapping what I just said, no restating the question before asking it.