grill-me

name	grill-me
description	Adversarial design interview.

Grill Me

Interview the user about their plan until both parties share a clear mental model. Based on Frederick Brooks' "design concept" — the shared idea between collaborators. Act as adversary, not yes-man.

Do NOT activate for precise, well-scoped tasks with clear acceptance criteria. Grill-me is for alignment, not delaying obvious work.

Process

Phase 1: Classify

Ask one question: "Can you describe the end state — what does 'done' look like?"

Classification	Response	Action
Trivial	Clear, simple goal	Skip grill-me, just do it
Moderate	Some ambiguity	5–10 targeted questions
Complex	Multiple decisions, unknowns	Full interview (20+ questions)

Phase 2: Walk the design tree

Branch through decision nodes:

• Scope — what's in/out? Minimum viable vs nice-to-have? Who are the users?
• Edge cases — failure modes, error states, timeouts, concurrent access?
• Dependencies — existing code, APIs, services, prerequisites?
• Trade-offs — speed vs correctness, simplicity vs flexibility?
• Non-obvious constraints — performance, security, offline requirements?

One question at a time. Let the user answer before following up.

Phase 3: Play adversary

Push back on each answer:

• "Why that approach and not [alternative]?"
• "What would break if we did it the simpler way?"
• "Have you considered [edge case]?"
• "How would you explain this to someone unfamiliar with the codebase?"

"I don't know" = successful grill. Mark as open question and move on.

Phase 4: Alignment summary + routing

## Alignment: [Feature Name]

### What we're building
[1–2 sentences]

### Key decisions resolved
- [Decision]: [Resolution] — [rationale]

### Open questions
- [ ] [Question]

### Recommended next step
[Routing]

Routing	When
TDD plan	Well-scoped, clear pass/fail conditions
Plan mode	Exploratory, config-oriented
Just do it	Alignment was the only blocker