generate-questions

Name the question the inquiry exists to answer: the driving question. Compose the questions that climb toward it, each a rung that must earn its place, and return them as an inquiry that whoever holds it can ask or answer without this conversation. Ask no one. Put no question to the user through any tool.

Read first

Read what the questions will land in before drafting: the thread, the files, the spec, what has already been said. List each fact the questions rest on under Given. Drop any candidate question whose answer turned up in the reading.

The rung test

Two gates hold in the core. First, relevance: would a complete answer to this question at least partly answer the driving question? If not, it's a digression dressed as a rung — cut it, or find the question that isn't. Second, discrimination: would different answers to it change what is done or asked next? A question whose every possible answer leaves your next move unchanged fails, however relevant its topic.

The four clarity laws

Every drafted question passes all four before it is asked or handed on.