| name | grill-me |
| description | Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design, presenting choices one at a time until shared understanding is reached. Resolves every branch of the decision tree. Use when the user wants to stress-test a plan, get grilled on their design, or mentions "grill me".
|
Skill: Grill Me
Category: Planning & Design
Purpose: Stress-test plans and designs through relentless, structured questioning before implementation begins.
Used By: plan-maker, documentation-writer, agent-maker
Overview
Stress-test plans and designs through relentless, structured questioning before implementation begins. Every decision branch is resolved one-by-one until shared understanding is reached.
When to Activate
Activate when:
- User says "grill me", "challenge my plan", "stress-test this", "interrogate my design", or any close variant
- A new plan is being created and design decisions remain open
- A design review is requested before committing to implementation
- A checklist item or acceptance criteria needs clarification before work starts
Process
Interview the user about every aspect of the plan until shared understanding is reached. Walk down each branch of the decision tree, resolving dependencies one-by-one.
Rules (HARD — no exceptions):
- Ask questions one at a time — never bundle multiple questions in one message
- EVERY question MUST present 2–4 concrete options with trade-off descriptions — open-ended questions without options are FORBIDDEN. If options cannot be enumerated, read the codebase first (Rule 4) and synthesize them before asking
- Mark the recommended option clearly, e.g.
**(Recommended)**
- Explore the codebase first — if a question can be answered by reading existing files (plans, specs, governance docs), read them instead of asking
- Continue until all branches are resolved
Tool preference: When operating in a Claude Code context, use the AskUserQuestion tool for each question. The interactive multi-choice UI shows the user exactly which options are available and lets them select with a single click. Fall back to the markdown format below only when AskUserQuestion is unavailable.
Question Format (Markdown Fallback)
When AskUserQuestion is not available, structure each question like this:
[Question]
- Option A: [description] — [trade-off]
- Option B: [description] — [trade-off] (Recommended)
- Option C: [description] — [trade-off]
Recommendation: Option B because [specific reason grounded in this context].
IKP-Labs Context
When grilling about IKP-Labs plans, common decision branches include:
| Topic | Typical options to surface |
|---|
| Plan scope | Single PR vs. multi-phase split |
| Agent design | Maker-only vs. full MCF triad |
| Skill dependency | Create stub now vs. bundle with consumer |
| Commit strategy | 1 commit per file vs. 1 commit per logical unit |
| Acceptance criteria | Gherkin Given/When/Then vs. prose checklist items |
Read plans/in-progress/ before asking plan-related questions — the answer may already be documented.
After the Grilling
When all decision tree branches are resolved:
- Summarize every decision made and its rationale
- Confirm shared understanding explicitly
- Signal readiness to proceed to plan writing or implementation
Related Skills
plan-creating-project-plans — 4-document plan system structureplan-writing-gherkin-criteria — writing acceptance criteria in Gherkin formatrepo-applying-maker-checker-fixer — MCF pattern decisions
Last Updated: June 2026
