| name | grill-with-docs-stateful |
| description | Stateful fork of grill-with-docs for long document-aware design sessions. It challenges plans against CONTEXT.md and ADRs while saving, loading, resuming, repairing, and compacting structured session state in .scratch/grilling-sessions/. Use when a grilling session may span multiple chats or the user asks to save, load, resume, or recover a grilling session. |
| metadata | {"original_skill":{"name":"grill-with-docs","author":"Matt Pococks","local_path":".agents/skills/grill-with-docs","repo_url":"https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/grill-with-docs"},"version":"1.0.0","created_at":"May 22, 2026","updated_at":"May 22, 2026 19:50 UTC"} |
Grill With Docs Stateful
Run a normal grilling session, but keep a durable Markdown state artifact when the session needs to survive chat resets.
Interview me relentlessly about every aspect of this plan until we reach a shared understanding. Walk down each branch of the design tree, resolving dependencies between decisions one-by-one. For each question, provide your recommended answer.
Offer recommendations as enumerated options for UX, and clearly mark which option you recommend.
Ask the questions one at a time, waiting for feedback on each question before continuing.
If a question can be answered by exploring the codebase, explore the codebase instead.
Before the first save, behave exactly like grill-with-docs.
When the user clearly asks to save, load, resume, recover, or compact a stateful grilling session, keep the normal grilling behavior intact and apply the matching state workflow from REFERENCE.md.
Domain awareness
During codebase exploration, also look for existing documentation:
File structure
Most repos have a single context:
/
├── CONTEXT.md
├── docs/
│ └── adr/
│ ├── 0001-event-sourced-orders.md
│ └── 0002-postgres-for-write-model.md
└── src/
If a CONTEXT-MAP.md exists at the root, the repo has multiple contexts. The map points to where each one lives:
/
├── CONTEXT-MAP.md
├── docs/
│ └── adr/ ← system-wide decisions
├── src/
│ ├── ordering/
│ │ ├── CONTEXT.md
│ │ └── docs/adr/ ← context-specific decisions
│ └── billing/
│ ├── CONTEXT.md
│ └── docs/adr/
Create files lazily — only when you have something to write. If no CONTEXT.md exists, create one when the first term is resolved. If no docs/adr/ exists, create it when the first ADR is needed.
During the session
Challenge against the glossary
When the user uses a term that conflicts with the existing language in CONTEXT.md, call it out immediately. "Your glossary defines 'cancellation' as X, but you seem to mean Y — which is it?"
Sharpen fuzzy language
When the user uses vague or overloaded terms, propose a precise canonical term. "You're saying 'account' — do you mean the Customer or the User? Those are different things."
Discuss concrete scenarios
When domain relationships are being discussed, stress-test them with specific scenarios. Invent scenarios that probe edge cases and force the user to be precise about the boundaries between concepts.
Cross-reference with code
When the user states how something works, check whether the code agrees. If you find a contradiction, surface it: "Your code cancels entire Orders, but you just said partial cancellation is possible — which is right?"
Update CONTEXT.md inline
When a term is resolved, update CONTEXT.md right there. Don't batch these up — capture them as they happen. Use the format in CONTEXT-FORMAT.md.
CONTEXT.md should be totally devoid of implementation details. Do not treat CONTEXT.md as a spec, a scratch pad, or a repository for implementation decisions. It is a glossary and nothing else.
Offer ADRs sparingly
Only offer to create an ADR when all three are true:
- Hard to reverse — the cost of changing your mind later is meaningful
- Surprising without context — a future reader will wonder "why did they do it this way?"
- The result of a real trade-off — there were genuine alternatives and you picked one for specific reasons
If any of the three is missing, skip the ADR. Use the format in ADR-FORMAT.md.
Stateful behavior
Before the first save, behave like grill-with-docs.
Map each clear state-management request to exactly one action from REFERENCE.md:
- Save request: run the save workflow and write or update the current session state.
- Load request: run the load workflow and present or load a resumable session.
- Resume request: treat it as a load-for-continuation request and continue the loaded session.
- Recover request: run the repair workflow for the existing state file.
- If the request is ambiguous, mixed, or unrecognized, ask which action the user wants before reading or writing any state file.
- Store one authoritative Markdown state artifact per conceptual grilling session in
.scratch/grilling-sessions/.
- Use the filename pattern
XXX-brief-session-name-state.md. The numeric prefix identifies the session, not the save count.
- Treat the Markdown state file as canonical.
last-session.json is only a convenience pointer.
- Preserve the existing status on save unless the user explicitly changes it.
- When a paused session is loaded for real continuation, transition it to
active and rewrite the state file immediately.
- Allow loading completed or abandoned sessions only through an explicit reopen decision.
- Once a state file exists, quietly auto-refresh it after a small batch of meaningful progress.
- Suggest compaction when the
Resolved Questions section contains more than 6 resolved questions and at least 1 older resolved question would be moved into a summary block. Do not compact without confirmation.
Deterministic helpers
Use the local scripts when bookkeeping needs to be reliable or machine-checked:
bun .agents/skills/grill-with-docs-stateful/scripts/validate-state.ts --file <path>bun .agents/skills/grill-with-docs-stateful/scripts/manage-pointer.ts read --pointer <path>bun .agents/skills/grill-with-docs-stateful/scripts/manage-pointer.ts update --pointer <path> --state <path>bun .agents/skills/grill-with-docs-stateful/scripts/detect-stale-write.ts --file <path> --expected-hash <hash>bun .agents/skills/grill-with-docs-stateful/scripts/repair-state.ts --file <path>bun .agents/skills/grill-with-docs-stateful/scripts/compact-state.ts --file <path> --resolved-limit 6
Resources
