| name | prd-interview |
| description | Grill-me interrogation discipline: convert context gaps into a relentless, adversarial, gap-closure-driven question set. Defines P0/P1/P2 tagging, gap-closure termination (no tight cap; large structural safety bound), the MC-vs-freeform rubric (2-6 choices + a 'Not sure / decide later' deferral, no 'Other'), do-not-invent-answers, and the bounded re-grill loop ending in [TBD]+OQ-NN. Triggers on: interview the user, grill me, structured PRD interview, gap questions, P0 questions. |
PRD Interview — Grill-Me Interrogation Patterns
This skill is loaded by @prd-interviewer (to author a
gap-closure-complete, choice-annotated question set) and
@spec-author (to render the questions interactively via
ask_user and run the bounded gap-closure loop).
The discipline is grill-me: relentless, adversarial,
one-gap-per-question interrogation that closes every open
requirement gap before drafting. Completeness over speed. The
sub-agent never speaks to the user; it emits the question set and
the orchestrator drives the interactive loop.
When to Use This Skill
Load this skill when:
- Converting
gaps-json into a gap-closure-complete, choice-
annotated question set (interviewer).
- Rendering the questions via
ask_user and running the bounded
gap-closure loop after the user replies (orchestrator).
Question-quality rules
- One gap per question. Do not bundle. Re-read the gathered
context first — never ask what the inputs already answer.
- Adversarial framing. Pose questions that force implicit
decisions to the surface: "What happens when…?", "What's the
threshold for…?", "Who is allowed to…?", "What does the user do
before this step?". Prefer the sharp edge case over the bland
restatement.
- MC where enumerable, freeform where open-ended — see the
MC-vs-freeform rubric below.
- Group by target PRD section so the user sees structure.
- Order by priority within each group. P0 first.
- Gap-closure termination, not a question cap. Keep asking
until every P0 and every reasonably-closable P1/P2 gap is
answered or explicitly deferred. There is no tight cap on
question count. A large structural safety bound — on the
order of dozens of questions — exists only to guarantee
termination; it is not a quality cap and you should almost
never approach it. Do not artificially truncate a genuinely
gap-driven interrogation.
- Do not invent answers. If you find yourself filling in a
placeholder while drafting the question, the answer goes in the
interview — not in the spec.
MC-vs-freeform rubric
For every question, decide its kind:
multiple_choice — use when the answer space is genuinely
enumerable (a bounded set of distinct options). Rules:
- Offer 2–6 distinct choices.
- Always include an explicit
"Not sure / decide later"
deferral choice as the final option. A user must never be
forced into a bucket.
- Never add a literal
"Other" bucket — the freeform
affordance (allow_freeform: true, set by the orchestrator when
it renders ask_user) already covers "none of these".
- Do not fabricate choices to pad to a count. If you can only
name one real option, the question is freeform.
freeform — use when the answer is open-ended: values,
thresholds, narratives, names, rationale ("What is the P95
latency target?", "Describe the primary user journey."). Do not
invent buckets for open-ended answers.
Priority tagging
| Tag | Meaning | Example |
|---|
| P0 | Blocker — drafter cannot fill the section without this. | "Who are the primary users? (without this, Users & Personas is empty)" |
| P1 | Improves quality — answer makes the spec materially better. | "What latency is acceptable?" |
| P2 | Nice — adds polish. | "Any preferred terminology for the new feature?" |
The orchestrator's re-grill loop only retries on unanswered (or
deferred) P0 gaps. P1 and P2 unanswered always go straight to
"Open Questions" without retry.
User-context question bank (bridge to experience-surface)
When gaps-json flags persona / JTBD / user-journey / roles-and-
permissions / usage-awareness gaps, draw questions from this bank.
The priority is gated on the experience-surface axis (set by
@context-detective):
experience-surface fired (UI-forward spec): the persona /
journey / role gaps needed for the "User Experience: Personas,
Journeys & Roles" section are P0 — the grill escalates on
UI-forward specs.- axis did not fire: the same gaps are P1/P2, feeding the
woven context (a JTBD line in Users & Personas, a usage signal
in Problem Statement); they never block drafting.
| Concept | Example question | Typical kind |
|---|
| Usage awareness | "What does telemetry / support data show about how users hit this problem today?" | freeform |
| Personas | "Which distinct user types will use this? (pick all that apply, or add your own)" | multiple_choice (+ deferral) |
| JTBD | "For persona X, what job are they hiring this for — 'When …, I want to …, so I can …'?" | freeform |
| User journey | "Walk me through the end-to-end steps the user takes to reach the goal." | freeform |
| Roles & permissions | "Which roles exist, and for capability Y, who is allowed and who is denied?" | multiple_choice (+ deferral) or freeform |
| Access model | "Is access decided by role only, or also by object ownership / attributes?" | multiple_choice: RBAC / RBAC + ownership (ReBAC) / attribute-based (ABAC) / Not sure / decide later |
Reference the full templates in
spec-driven-prd-best-practices §11
and
user-context-patterns.md.
Bounded gap-closure loop (C5)
The interviewer emits the full gap-closure-complete question set
once; the orchestrator renders each question via ask_user
(enumerable → choices + allow_freeform: true; open-ended →
freeform) and drives the loop:
- Map every answered question by the interviewer's coverage IDs.
A
"Not sure / decide later" reply counts as deferred, not
answered.
- Re-grill remaining or newly-revealed P0 gaps. After a round
of answers, if any P0 gap is still unanswered/deferred, OR an
answer reveals a new P0 gap, issue a focused follow-up round
asking only those P0 gaps (prefixed with one context line,
e.g. "A couple more before I can draft — these block the spec").
Repeat until every P0 gap is answered or explicitly deferred.
- Structural safety bound (termination guarantee, not a quality
cap). Cap the loop at a large structural bound — on the order
of a handful of re-grill rounds / dozens of total questions.
This exists only to prevent non-termination; a well-scoped spec
closes P0 gaps in one or two rounds. Do NOT treat the bound as a
target or use it to truncate a genuinely open interrogation.
- Residue → do-not-invent fallback. When the loop ends with a
P0 still unanswered/deferred: tell
@prd-drafter to fill that
section with [TBD — interview question N unanswered] and add a
verbatim OQ-NN entry to the spec's "Open Questions" section.
Never fabricate the answer.
- P1/P2 unanswered → straight to "Open Questions", no retry.
They never block progress and are never re-grilled.
Anti-patterns
| Anti-pattern | Problem | Fix |
|---|
| Artificial tight cap ("stop at 12") | Leaves P0 gaps open; the spec ships with holes | Terminate on gap closure; only the large structural safety bound applies. |
| Fabricated multiple-choice buckets | Misleads the user; invents structure | If you can name only one real option, make it freeform. |
| Forcing the user into a bucket with no deferral | User can't say "unknown"; produces bad data | Every MC question ends with "Not sure / decide later". |
Adding a literal "Other" choice | Redundant with the freeform affordance | Drop "Other"; rely on allow_freeform: true. |
| Compound questions ("latency target AND rollout window?") | One half gets answered | Split into two questions. |
| Closed yes/no when the answer is qualitative | Loses information | Ask "Why?" / "What does that look like?" (freeform). |
| Asking about the obvious ("What's this feature called?") | Wastes attention | Re-read inputs first. |
| Retrying P1/P2 if unanswered | Slows the user; not a blocker | Promote to "Open Questions" silently. |
Quality checklist
