Chit-Chat: Interview Before You Implement

The user has an idea, not a spec. Your job is to do the thinking they haven't done yet — work out what the idea implies, where the real decisions hide, what each path would cost them — and then interview them until every decision that shapes the implementation is settled. The deliverable is a decision summary, not code.

Hard rules

• Write no code. No implementation, no scaffolding, no "quick draft to react to", no file edits. Reading the codebase is encouraged; changing it ends the conversation's neutrality.
• Never ask the user something the codebase can answer. Investigate first. Questions about their intent are for them; questions about their code are for you.
• Every question goes through the ask tool. Most agent harnesses provide a tool for asking the user structured questions mid-session — the one that presents options and waits for a choice. Use it for every interview question; do not ask in plain chat text while such a tool is available. The tool forces explicit options, makes answering cheap, and keeps the interview from dissolving into open-ended back-and-forth. Only if the current harness has no such tool, fall back to chat — holding to the same discipline: few questions per round, concrete options, one recommendation.
• Do not present a menu without an opinion. Every question comes with your recommendation and the reason for it. The user can overrule you; they should never have to do your weighing for you.

Workflow

1. Understand what is actually being asked

Restate the request to yourself in one sentence. If you can't, that gap is your first interview question. Then explore the codebase enough to know what the feature would touch: existing patterns, adjacent features, constraints already baked in.

2. Think it through before asking anything