ask-matt

name	ask-matt
description	Ask which skill or flow fits your situation. A router over the skills in this repo.
disable-model-invocation	true

Ask Matt

You don't remember every skill, so ask.

A flow is a path through the skills. Most paths run along one main flow, and two on-ramps merge onto it. Everything else is standalone, or a vocabulary layer that runs underneath.

The main flow: idea → ship

The route most work travels. You have an idea and want it built.

1. /grill-with-docs — sharpen the idea by interview. Start here when you have a codebase: it's stateful, retaining what it learns in CONTEXT.md and ADRs. (No codebase? Use /grilling — see Standalone. Both run the same /grilling primitive; grill-with-docs is the one that leaves a paper trail.)

2. Branch — can you settle every question in conversation? If a question needs a runnable answer (state, business logic, a UI you have to see), detour through a prototype, bridged by /handoff in both directions (see Crossing sessions):

   • /handoff out, then open a fresh session against that file,
   • /prototype to answer the question with throwaway code,
   • /handoff back what you learned, and reference it from the original idea thread.

3. Branch — is this a multi-session build?

   • Yes → /to-spec (turn the thread into a spec), then /to-tickets to split it into tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring its blocking edges. On a local tracker that's an ordered tickets.md you work by hand; on a real tracker the edges become native blocking links, so any ticket whose blockers are done can be grabbed — kick off /implement per ticket, clearing context between each one.
   • No → /implement right here, in the same context window.

   Either way, /implement builds each issue by driving /tdd internally — one red-green slice at a time — then closes out by running /code-review, a two-axis review (Standards + Spec) of the diff, before committing. Reach for /tdd on its own when you just want to build a concrete behaviour test-first without a full spec, and /code-review on its own whenever you want to review a branch or PR against a fixed point.

Context hygiene

Keep steps 1–3 in one unbroken context window — don't compact or clear until after /to-tickets — so the grilling, spec, and tickets all build on the same thinking. Each /implement then starts fresh, working from the ticket.

The limit on this is the smart zone: the window (~120k tokens on state-of-the-art models) within which the model still reasons sharply. If a session approaches it before /to-tickets, don't push on degraded — /handoff and continue in a fresh thread.

On-ramps

A starting situation that generates work, then merges onto the main flow.

• Bugs and requests piling up → /triage. It moves issues through triage roles and produces agent-ready issues, which /implement later picks up.

  Triage is only for issues you didn't create — bug reports, incoming feature requests, anything that arrives raw. Tickets that /to-tickets produced are already agent-ready, so don't triage them.

• Something's broken → /diagnosing-bugs. For the hard ones: the bug that resists a first glance, the intermittent flake, the regression that crept in between two known-good states. It refuses to theorise until it has a tight feedback loop — one command that already goes red on this bug — then fixes with a regression test. Its post-mortem hands off to /improve-codebase-architecture when the real finding is that there's no good seam to lock the bug down.

• A huge, foggy effort — a greenfield project or a huge feature build, too big for one session → /wayfinder. When the way from here to the destination isn't visible yet, it charts a shared map of investigation tickets on the issue tracker and resolves them one at a time — producing decisions, not deliverables — until the fog is pushed back and the way is clear. Then it merges onto the main flow at /to-spec (or, if the effort turned out small enough, straight to /implement). Where /grill-with-docs sharpens an idea you can hold in one session, wayfinder is for the idea you can't.

Codebase health

Not feature work — upkeep.

• /improve-codebase-architecture — run whenever you have a spare moment to keep the codebase good for agents to operate in. It surfaces deepening opportunities; picking one generates an idea you can take into the main flow at /grill-with-docs. It's the survey that finds the candidates; its INTERFACE-DESIGN.md is the bench you design the chosen one on.

Vocabulary underneath

Two model-invoked references that run beneath the other skills — each the single source of truth for its vocabulary. Reach for them directly when the words, not the process, are the problem; or let the skills above pull them in.

• /grill-with-docs — sharpen the project's domain language while building a paper trail: challenge a fuzzy term, resolve an overloaded word ("account" doing three jobs), record a hard-to-reverse decision as an ADR, update CONTEXT.md inline. It now subsumes the former domain-modeling discipline.
• /improve-codebase-architecture — the deep-module vocabulary (module, interface, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality) lives in its LANGUAGE.md and INTERFACE-DESIGN.md. Design a module's shape: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface at a clean seam. /tdd speaks it too.

Crossing sessions

• /handoff — when a thread is full or you need to branch off (e.g. into a /prototype session), this compacts the conversation into a markdown file. You don't continue in place — you open a new session and reference that file to carry the context across. It's the bridge between context windows, in either direction. Use it when you want a fresh session but need the current conversation preserved.
• /compact (built-in) — stay in the same conversation, letting the earlier turns be summarized. Use it at intentional breaks between phases, when you don't mind losing the verbatim history. Don't compact mid-phase — the agent can lose its way. /handoff forks; /compact continues.

Standalone

Off the main flow entirely.

• /grilling — the same relentless interview as /grill-with-docs, but for when you have no codebase. Stateless: it saves nothing locally, builds no CONTEXT.md. Reach for it to sharpen any plan or design that doesn't live in a repo. Also triggers on "grill me".
• /prototype — a small, throwaway program that answers one design question: does this state model feel right, or what should this UI look like. Throwaway from day one — keep the answer, delete the code. It's the detour in step 2 of the main flow, but reach for it any time a design question is hard to settle on paper.
• /research — delegate reading legwork to a background agent: it investigates a question against primary sources, then leaves a cited Markdown file in the repo. Keep working while it reads. The file it produces is something to take into the main flow at /grill-with-docs — research feeds the thinking, it doesn't replace it.
• /teach — learn a concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful workspace.
• /write-a-skill — how to create skills and the principles that make them great (see PRINCIPLES.md + GLOSSARY.md).

Precondition

/setup-matt — run before your first engineering flow to configure profiles, issue tracker, triage labels, doc layout, and workspace context the other skills assume. Custom issue trackers also work.

Skill Map (current)

Profile	Skills
orchestrator	caveman, codebase-onboarding, context-budget, eval, git-workflow, github-ops, herdr, memory-dreaming, search-first, setup-matt, skill-author, workflow-audit, handoff, research, grilling, verify-evidence, production-audit, ask-matt
planning	architecture-decision-records, deep-research, domain-modeling, grill-with-docs, handoff, improve-codebase-architecture, research, teach, to-spec, to-tickets, triage, wayfinder, write-a-skill
engineering	accessibility, angular-developer, api-connector-builder, backend-patterns, containers, database-migrations, database-patterns, database-review, design-skill, django, fastapi-patterns, flox-environments, implement, laravel, mcp-server-patterns, modular-monolith, nextjs-turbopack, nuxt4-patterns, prototype, react-patterns, shared-hosting-deployment, ui-to-vue, vite-patterns
validation	ai-regression-testing, click-path-audit, code-review, diagnosing-bugs, error-handling, php-review, production-audit, tdd, team-handoff-quality, verify-evidence, defi-amm-security, evm-token-decimals, nodejs-keccak256, prediction-market-risk-review, security-bounty-hunter, security-review