| name | interview-me |
| description | Clarify what the user actually wants before specs, plans, or code. Use when an ask is underspecified, when the user says "interview me", "grill me", "stress-test my thinking", or when you would otherwise fill in important product/architecture assumptions silently. |
Interview Me
Use this before /spec-driven-development, /spec, or /plan when the requested outcome is not clear enough to implement without guessing.
When To Use
Use when the ask is missing one or more of:
- Who the user/operator is
- Why this matters now
- What success looks like
- The binding constraint or tradeoff
- Explicit out-of-scope boundaries
Skip for mechanical edits, obvious bug fixes, pure information requests, or when the user explicitly asks for speed over clarification.
Process
1. State A Hypothesis
Write one sentence plus a confidence number.
HYPOTHESIS: You want workspace switching to preserve task context because agents lose momentum when users navigate between workspaces.
CONFIDENCE: 45% - missing: who feels the pain, what "preserve" means, and what counts as done.
2. Ask Focused Questions
Format every question with a guess.
Q: Is this primarily for human users switching between workspaces, or for office agents operating across workspaces?
GUESS: Human users, because the pain sounds navigation-related rather than automation-related.
If the active harness provides a native user-question UI that supports multiple
questions in one turn, ask 2-4 focused questions together. Keep each question
short, include your guess in the prompt or options, and make the options
concrete enough that the user can answer quickly.
If no multi-question tool is available, ask one question at a time in chat. Do not send a long questionnaire.
3. Probe Convention-Sounding Answers
If the user says "modern", "scalable", "best practice", "dashboard", "robust", or "clean architecture" without concrete outcomes, ask:
If you did not have to justify this as best practice, what would you actually want?
4. Restate Intent
When confidence is high, restate in this shape:
Here's what I think you want:
- Outcome:
- User:
- Why now:
- Success:
- Constraint:
- Out of scope:
Yes / no / refine?
Do not proceed to /spec, /plan, or implementation until the user explicitly confirms or corrects the restate.
Output
The deliverable is a confirmed statement of intent. If the user wants it persisted, save it only after confirmation, usually in a feature spec via /spec; avoid creating standalone intent docs unless explicitly requested.
Red Flags
- Long open-ended questionnaires with no guesses
- A question with no guess attached
- Accepting "whatever you think" as confirmation
- Starting a spec or plan before the user confirms the restate
- No explicit out-of-scope line
