grilling
Grilling
Interview the user about a plan, design, product idea, implementation approach, or architectural choice until there is shared understanding — relentless on the decisions that genuinely need them, silent on the ones you can settle yourself. Do not act on the plan until the user confirms shared understanding has been reached.
Walk the decision tree one branch at a time. Resolve dependencies between decisions in order. The frontier is every open decision whose prerequisites are already settled — the questions that can be asked now without guessing at answers not yet given. For each question, provide a recommended answer and concrete alternatives with trade-offs.
Finding facts is never the user's job. If a question can be answered by exploring the environment — codebase, files, docs, tools, or current implementation — inspect that context instead of asking. When a fact needs real reading, resolve it through the research skill's dispatch rules (its sub-agent must complete inside this session), mark the branch deferred, and keep interviewing the rest of the frontier.
Core Loop
- Identify the next unresolved decision that matters.
- Try to settle it yourself — walk the ladder in Settle it yourself first. If any rung settles it, record the decision and move on without asking.
- Ask exactly one question at a time. Asking multiple questions at once is bewildering.
- Lead with the recommended option and explain the trade-off for every option.
- After the user answers, update the decision ledger and infer any downstream decisions that answer implies.
- Continue until the plan is resolved, the user stops the grill, or the remaining uncertainty cannot be resolved without external information.